If neural spike trains carry information in the frequency and timing of the spikes, then neural interactions--such as oscillatory synchronization--that alter spike frequency and timing can alter the encoded information. Using coupled oscillator theory, we show that synchronization-based processing can be used to integrate sensory information, resulting in new second-order sensory percepts signa...

The theory and practice of sensory integration were developed in the late 1960s by an occupational therapist and psychologist, Dr. A. Jean Ayres [1]. Also, known as sensory processing, it is “the neurological process that organizes sensation from one’s own body and from the environment and makes it possible to use the body effectively within the environment” [1].   

As nomads, humanity constantly moved and relocated for hundred thousands of years. Thereby, individuals or small groups of people had to navigate over very long distances in order to survive. As a result, successful spatial navigation was one of the key cognitive abilities, which ensured our survival. Although navigation has nowadays become less life-threatening, exploring our environment and e...

The thalamocortical network consists of the pathways that interconnect the thalamus and neocortex, including thalamic sensory afferents, corticothalamic and thalamocortical pathways. These pathways are essential to acquire, analyze, store and retrieve sensory information. However, sensory information processing mostly occurs during behavioral arousal, when activity in thalamus and neocortex con...

The sensory pathways of animals are well adapted to processing a special class of signals, namely stimuli from the animal's environment. An important fact about natural stimuli is that they are typically very redundant and hence the sampled representation of these signals formed by the array of sensory cells is inefficient. One could argue for some animals and pathways, as we do in this review,...

Understanding the mechanisms by which sensory neurons encode and decode information remains an important goal in neuroscience. We quantified the performance of optimal linear and nonlinear encoding models in a well-characterized sensory system: the electric sense of weakly electric fish. We show that linear encoding models generally perform better under spatially localized stimulation than unde...

The neocortex generates spontaneous slow oscillations that consist of up and down states during quiescence. Up states are short epochs of persistent activity that resemble the state of cortical activation during arousal and cognition. The excitability of cortical cells and synaptic networks is impacted by up states. This review describes the characteristics and putative functional role of up st...

Recently, a statistical signal-processing technique has allowed the information carried by single spike trains of sensory neurons on time-varying stimuli to be characterized quantitatively in a variety of preparations. In weakly electric fish, its application to first-order sensory neurons encoding electric field amplitude (P-receptor afferents) showed that they convey accurate information on t...

What is the mechanism underlying search phenomena such as search asymmetry? Two-stage models such as Feature Integration Theory and Guided Search propose parallel pre-attentive processing followed by serial post-attentive processing. They claim search asymmetry effects are indicative of finding pairs of features, one processed in parallel, the other in serial. An alternative proposal is that a ...