Cited by 1,219Neural dynamics and brain functionUndergraduate Neuroscience Education and ResearchNeural Networks and Applications

Dimensionality reduction for large-scale neural recordings

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Cunningham, John P, Yu, Byron M·2014·Nature Neuroscience

Abstract

Most sensory, cognitive and motor functions depend on the interactions of many neurons. In recent years, there has been rapid development and increasing use of technologies for recording from large numbers of neurons, either sequentially or simultaneously. A key question is what scientific insight can be gained by studying a population of recorded neurons beyond studying each neuron individually. Here, we examine three important motivations for population studies: single-trial hypotheses requiring statistical power, hypotheses of population response structure and exploratory analyses of large data sets. Many recent studies have adopted dimensionality reduction to analyze these populations and to find features that are not apparent at the level of individual neurons. We describe the dimensionality reduction methods commonly applied to population activity and offer practical advice about selecting methods and interpreting their outputs. This review is intended for experimental and computational researchers who seek to understand the role dimensionality reduction has had and can have in systems neuroscience, and who seek to apply these methods to their own data.

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  • Analysis of intrinsic dimensionality confirms high-dimensional neural coding during epoch 1 that collapses rapidly to just a single dimension following first touch during epochs 2, 3, and 4.

    “Analysis of intrinsic dimensionality (44) (Materials and Methods) during decision-making (Fig. 2M) confirms the high-dimensional neural coding during epoch 1 that collapses rapidly to just a single dimension following the FT during epochs 2, 3, and 4.”

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  1. [69]Danoczy M Hahnloser R Efficient estimation of hidden state dynamics from spike trains Adv. Neural Inf. Process. Syst 2006 8 227 234
  2. [75]Buesing L Macke J Sahani M Spectral learning of linear dynamics from generalized-linear observations with application to neural population data Adv. Neural Inf. Process. Syst 2012 25 1691 1699

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Authors
Cunningham, J. P., & Yu, B. M.
Affiliations
  • Columbia University (US)
  • Center for the Neural Basis of Cognition (US)
Corresponding author
  • Cunningham, John P
  • Yu, Byron M
Venue
Nature Neuroscience
Published
2014-08-24
Volume
17
Issue
11
Pages
1500-1509
ISSN
  • 1097-6256 (ISSN-L)
  • 1546-1726
OpenAlex
W2017539895
Cited by
1,219
References
98
Citations by year
2026: 141 · 2025: 137 · 2024: 135 · 2023: 116 · 2022: 123 · 2021: 115 · 2020: 85 · 2019: 103 · 2018: 82 · 2017: 82 · 2016: 50 · 2015: 41 · 2014: 9
FWCI
5.85
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Locations
  • Nature Neuroscience (publishedVersion)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
  • PubMed Central (acceptedVersion)
Funders
Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (R01HD071686)
Topics
  • Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Neural dynamics and brain function
  • Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Undergraduate Neuroscience Education and Research
  • Physical Sciences › Computer Science › Artificial Intelligence › Neural Networks and Applications
Keywords
dimensionality reduction, neural population activity, large-scale neural recording, population coding, single-trial analysis, statistical power, exploratory data analysis, systems neuroscience, method selection
MeSH terms
Animals, Data Collection, Humans, Nerve Net, Neurons, Statistics as Topic

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