Knieling S, Niediek J, Kutter E, Bostroem J, Elger CE, Mormann F. An online adaptive screening procedure for selective neuronal responses.
J Neurosci Methods 2017;
291:36-42. [PMID:
28826654 DOI:
10.1016/j.jneumeth.2017.08.002]
[Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/09/2017] [Revised: 08/01/2017] [Accepted: 08/02/2017] [Indexed: 11/30/2022]
Abstract
BACKGROUND
A common problem in neurophysiology is to identify stimuli that elicit neuronal responses in a given brain region. Particularly in situations where electrode positions are fixed, this can be a time-consuming task that requires presentation of a large number of stimuli. Such a screening for response-eliciting stimuli is employed, e.g., as a standard procedure to identify 'concept cells' in the human medial temporal lobe.
NEW METHOD
Our new method evaluates neuronal responses to stimuli online during a screening session, which allows us to successively exclude stimuli that do not evoke a response. Using this method, we can screen a larger number of stimuli which in turn increases the chances of finding responsive neurons and renders time-consuming offline analysis unnecessary.
RESULTS
Our method enabled us to present 30% more stimuli in the same period of time with additional presentations of the most promising candidate stimuli. Our online method ran smoothly on a standard computer and network.
COMPARISON WITH AN EXISTING METHOD
To analyze how our online screening procedure performs in comparison to an established offline method, we used the Wave_Clus software package. We did not observe any major drawbacks in our method, but a much higher efficiency and analysis speed.
CONCLUSIONS
By transitioning from a traditional offline screening procedure to our new online method, we substantially increased the number of visual stimuli presented in a given time period. This allows to identify more response-eliciting stimuli, which forms the basis to better address a great number of questions in cognitive neuroscience.
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