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A neural basis of probabilistic computation in visual cortex

View ORCID ProfileEdgar Y. Walker, R. James Cotton, View ORCID ProfileWei Ji Ma, View ORCID ProfileAndreas S. Tolias
doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/365973
Edgar Y. Walker
1Center for Neuroscience and Artificial Intelligence, Baylor College of Medicine, TX, USA
2Department of Neuroscience, Baylor College of Medicine, TX, USA
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R. James Cotton
1Center for Neuroscience and Artificial Intelligence, Baylor College of Medicine, TX, USA
2Department of Neuroscience, Baylor College of Medicine, TX, USA
3Now at: Shirley Ryan AbilityLab, IL, USA
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Wei Ji Ma
4Center for Neural Science and Department of Psychology, New York University, NY, USA
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Andreas S. Tolias
1Center for Neuroscience and Artificial Intelligence, Baylor College of Medicine, TX, USA
2Department of Neuroscience, Baylor College of Medicine, TX, USA
5Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Rice University, TX, USA
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  • For correspondence: astolias@bcm.edu
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Abstract

Bayesian models of behavior suggest that organisms represent uncertainty associated with sensory variables. However, the neural code of uncertainty remains elusive. A central hypothesis is that uncertainty is encoded in the population activity of cortical neurons in the form of likelihood functions. We studied the neural code of uncertainty by simultaneously recording population activity from the primate visual cortex during a visual categorization task in which trial-to-trial uncertainty about stimulus orientation was relevant for the decision. We decoded the likelihood function from the trial-to-trial population activity and found that it predicted decisions better than a point estimate of orientation. This remained true when we conditioned on the true orientation, suggesting that internal fluctuations in neural activity drive behaviorally meaningful variations in the likelihood function. Our results establish the role of population-encoded likelihood functions in mediating behavior, and provide a neural underpinning for Bayesian models of perception.

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The copyright holder for this preprint is the author/funder, who has granted bioRxiv a license to display the preprint in perpetuity. It is made available under a CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0 International license.
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Posted April 25, 2019.
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A neural basis of probabilistic computation in visual cortex
Edgar Y. Walker, R. James Cotton, Wei Ji Ma, Andreas S. Tolias
bioRxiv 365973; doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/365973
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A neural basis of probabilistic computation in visual cortex
Edgar Y. Walker, R. James Cotton, Wei Ji Ma, Andreas S. Tolias
bioRxiv 365973; doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/365973

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