Cited by 198Neural dynamics and brain functionVisual perception and processing mechanismsNeuroscience and Neuropharmacology Research

Cortical state determines global variability and correlations in visual cortex

Open access
Schölvinck, Marieke L., Saleem, Aman B., Benucci, Andrea, Harris, Kenneth D., Carandini, Matteo·2015·The Journal of Neuroscience

Abstract

The response of neurons in sensory cortex to repeated stimulus presentations is highly variable. To investigate the nature of this variability, we compared the spike activity of neurons in the primary visual cortex (V1) of cats with that of their afferents from lateral geniculate nucleus (LGN), in response to similar stimuli. We found variability to be much higher in V1 than in LGN. To investigate the sources of the additional variability, we measured the spiking activity of large V1 populations and found that much of the variability was shared across neurons: the variable portion of the responses of one neuron could be well predicted from the summed activity of the rest of the neurons. Variability thus mostly reflected global fluctuations affecting all neurons. The size and prevalence of these fluctuations, both in responses to stimuli and in ongoing activity, depended on cortical state, being larger in synchronized states than in more desynchronized states. Contrary to previous reports, these fluctuations invested the overall population, regardless of preferred orientation. The global fluctuations substantially increased variability in single neurons and correlations among pairs of neurons. Once this effect was removed, pairwise correlations were reduced and were similar regardless of cortical state. These results highlight the importance of cortical state in controlling cortical operation and can help reconcile previous studies, which differed widely in their estimate of neuronal variability and pairwise correlations.

The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.

Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.

A few free checks a day · papers already verified open instantly · results are public

Integrity signals

Registry

Crossref · 10.1523/jneurosci.4994-13.2015

Cites

61 of 61 references verified0 citation errors · 0 not checkable

Statistics

Claims the paper makes

The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.

Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.

A few free checks a day · papers already verified open instantly · results are public

Claims other papers make about this one

Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?

  • State variations affect sensory evoked neural activity as much as variations in the sensory stimulus itself.

    “These variations in state exert an effect on sensory evoked neural activity that can be as significant as variations in the sensory stimulus itself”

    From Waking state: rapid variations modulate neural and behavioral responses (2015) · cites this paper as Scholvinck et al., 2015

Self-check

Percentages, sums and reported differences re-computed from the paper’s own numbers.

The self-check needs the paper’s full text.

Cites

Flagged first, then by citations

Cited by

Sorted by citations

Authors
Schölvinck, M. L., Saleem, A. B., Benucci, A., Harris, K. D., & Carandini, M.
Affiliations
  • University College London (GB)
  • UCL Queen Square Institute of Neurology (GB)
Venue
The Journal of Neuroscience
Published
2015-01-07
Volume
35
Issue
1
Pages
170-178
ISSN
  • 0270-6474 (ISSN-L)
  • 1529-2401
OpenAlex
W1969233644
Cited by
198
References
61
Citations by year
2026: 2 · 2025: 6 · 2024: 13 · 2023: 10 · 2022: 12 · 2021: 16 · 2020: 21 · 2019: 21 · 2018: 26 · 2017: 27 · 2016: 28 · 2015: 16
FWCI
19.46
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Locations
  • Journal of Neuroscience (publishedVersion, cc-by)
  • PubMed Central (publishedVersion)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
  • MPG.PuRe (Max Planck Society) (submittedVersion, cc-by)
  • UCL Discovery (University College London) (submittedVersion)
Funders
  • GlaxoSmithKline
  • Wellcome Trust (095668, 095669)
  • Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EP/I005102/1, EP/I005102/2, EP/K015141/1)
Topics
  • Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Neural dynamics and brain function
  • Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Visual perception and processing mechanisms
  • Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cellular and Molecular Neuroscience › Neuroscience and Neuropharmacology Research
Keywords
neural variability, cortical state, primary visual cortex, lateral geniculate nucleus, spike train correlations, global fluctuations, cortical synchronization, population coding, crystallographic texture
MeSH terms
Animals, Cats, Female, Nerve Net, Photic Stimulation, Random Allocation, Visual Cortex, Visual Pathways

About these checks

Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.

Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.

Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.

What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›

Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review