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Whither variability?

Variability is a ubiquitous aspect of neural recordings. In an influential paper, Churchland et al. (2010) compiled data from many cortical areas to demonstrate that variability generally decreases upon presentation of a stimulus. What are the implications of this finding?

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Fig. 1: Scenarios for network variability.

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Correspondence to Adrienne L. Fairhall.

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Fairhall, A.L. Whither variability?. Nat Neurosci 22, 329–330 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41593-019-0344-0

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