Unlike classifiers in most previous studies, this classifier is not provided with the stimulus onset time. Neural activity analyzed with the use of relative spike timing was well correlated with behavioral speech discrimination

in quiet and in noise. Spike timing information integrated over longer intervals was required to accurately predict rat behavioral speech discrimination in noisy conditions. The similarity of neural and behavioral discrimination of speech in noise MLN0128 molecular weight suggests that humans and rats may employ similar brain mechanisms to solve this problem. “
“Deep brain stimulation of the subthalamic nucleus is an effective treatment for Parkinson’s disease, although its precise mechanisms remain poorly understood. To gain further insight into the mechanisms underlying deep brain stimulation, we analysed the causal relationship between forearm muscle activity and local field potentials derived from the subthalamic nucleus. In 19 patients

suffering from Parkinson’s disease of the akinetic-rigid subtype, we calculated the squared partial directed coherence between muscles of the contralateral forearm and the subthalamic nucleus or zona incerta during both a rest and a hold condition of the arm. For both recording regions, data analysis revealed that, during the rest condition, electromyographic INCB024360 in vivo activity was significantly more often ‘Granger-causal’ for the local field potentials than the opposite causation. In contrast, during the hold condition, no significant difference was found in the occurrence of causalities. Contrary to the existing basal ganglia model and the current concept of Parkinson’s disease pathophysiology, we found the subthalamic nucleus to receive more ‘afferences’

than it emitted ‘efferences’, suggesting that its role is more complex than a simple driving nucleus in the basal ganglia loop. Therefore, the effect of deep brain stimulation in the subthalamic nucleus could, else at least in part, result from a blockade of pathological afferent input. “
“The pulvinar nuclei appear to function as the subcortical visual pathway that bypasses the striate cortex, rapidly processing coarse facial information. We investigated responses from monkey pulvinar neurons during a delayed non-matching-to-sample task, in which monkeys were required to discriminate five categories of visual stimuli [photos of faces with different gaze directions, line drawings of faces, face-like patterns (three dark blobs on a bright oval), eye-like patterns and simple geometric patterns]. Of 401 neurons recorded, 165 neurons responded differentially to the visual stimuli. These visual responses were suppressed by scrambling the images. Although these neurons exhibited a broad response latency distribution, face-like patterns elicited responses with the shortest latencies (approximately 50 ms).