2005/08/29 by David J. Klein, Klein, David J., Jonathan Z. Simon +6
Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology · Computer Science · Neuroscience · #FOS: Biological sciences #Neural Networks and Applications #Neural dynamics and brain function #Neurons and Cognition (q-bio.NC) #Quantitative Methods (q-bio.QM) #Visual perception and processing mechanisms #q-bio.NC #q-bio.QM
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.q-bio/0508039
42 pages, 8 Figures; to appear in Journal of Computational Neuroscience
arxiv created 2005/08/29 · openalex publication_date 2005/08/29 · arxiv updated 2009/12/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
The spectrotemporal receptive field (STRF) provides a versatile and integrated, spectral and temporal, functional characterization of single cells in primary auditory cortex (AI). In this paper, we explore the origin of, and relationship between, different ways of measuring and analyzing an STRF. We demonstrate that STRFs measured using a spectrotemporally diverse array of broadband stimuli -- such as dynamic ripples, spectrotemporally white noise, and temporally orthogonal ripple combinations (TORCs) -- are very similar, confirming earlier findings that the STRF is a robust linear descriptor of the cell. We also present a new deterministic analysis framework that employs the Fourier series to describe the spectrotemporal modulations contained in the stimuli and responses. Additional insights into the STRF measurements, including the nature and interpretation of measurement errors, is presented using the Fourier transform, coupled to singular-value decomposition (SVD), and variability analyses including bootstrap. The results promote the utility of the STRF as a core functional descriptor of neurons in AI.