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The needle in the haystack

Nature Neuroscience volume 17, pages 752–753 (2014)Cite this article

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Spike-based approaches to feature selectivity in sensory pathways can bias toward only the most active neurons. A subthreshold method identifies feature selectivity in the rodent vibrissal system regardless of spiking activity.

We live in a complex sensory environment and are constantly being bombarded by signals that activate each of our sensory pathways. The basic premise of sensory neuroscience is that, as we move through the pathway from the periphery to deeper in the brain, individual neurons become increasingly selective for particular features in the sensory world. It is this feature selectivity on which we form our perceptions of the outside world. Since the seminal work of Hubel and Wiesel in the visual pathway1, the race has been on to identify complex feature selectivity in a range of sensory pathways so that we may unlock the mysteries behind what the pathway is actually doing, how the synaptic architecture of the circuitry creates the selectivity, and how the selectivity feeds computations that ultimately give rise to inferences and decision-making. In this issue, Ramirez et al.2 use a multi-whisker stimulator and in vivo whole-cell recording in the cortical region associated with the facial vibrissae of the rat in the search for feature selectivity and the synaptic inputs that shape the selectivity in this well-studied pathway.

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Figure 1: Identifying feature selectivity.

Debbie Maizels/Nature Publishing Group

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Clarissa J. Shephard and Garrett B. Stanley are in the Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology and Emory University, Atlanta, Georgia, USA.,

    Clarissa J Shephard & Garrett B Stanley

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  1. Clarissa J Shephard
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  2. Garrett B Stanley
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Correspondence to Garrett B Stanley.

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Shephard, C., Stanley, G. The needle in the haystack. Nat Neurosci 17, 752–753 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1038/nn.3730

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