%0 Journal Article %A Ayelet Arazi %A Gil Gonen-Yaacovi %A Ilan Dinstein %T Trial-by-trial neural variability is a stable individual trait of adult humans %D 2016 %R 10.1101/096198 %J bioRxiv %P 096198 %X A wide variety of sensory studies have shown that cortical neural activity varies dramatically across trials. This trial-by-trial neural variability is relatively large in the pre-stimulus period and considerably smaller (quenched) following stimulus presentation. Neural variability affects behaviour. For example, perceptual performance is better on trials and in individuals where variability quenching is larger. Furthermore, allocating attention to a stimulus improves behavioral performance by reducing neural variability. How consistent are neural variability measures of individual subjects? Here, we show that neural variability magnitudes are remarkably consistent across four different tasks with different attentional and cognitive demands as well as across experimental sessions separated by one year. These results suggest that, in adults, neural variability magnitudes are solidified individual traits, which change little with behavioral state or time, and predispose individual subjects to exhibit specific behavioral capabilities. %U https://www.biorxiv.org/content/biorxiv/early/2016/12/22/096198.full.pdf