Neuronal spiking is better than bursting at predicting motion detection in area MT

Abstract

Background: The middle temporal visual area (MT) is widely studied in visual processing and in integration of motion signals to form general perceptions. The objective of this study is to determine whether neuronal bursting in area MT of monkeys is more predictive of motion detection than neuronal spiking.

Methods: Two Macaca mulatta (macaque) monkeys were trained in Dr. Erik Cook’s lab to detect coherent motion while connected to microelectrodes that determined their neuronal spiking activities. Using MatLab, we manipulated the collected data to determine whether spiking or bursting is more predictive of motion detection.

Results: We repeatedly found that neuronal spiking in area MT is better than bursting at predicting motion detection in macaques (p < 0.01).

Conclusions: Therefore, our results suggest that area MT neurons do not fire behaviourally meaningful bursts in response to coherent motion. This finding is useful for learning about the visual processing pathway, and how information is coded in the brain.

Limitations: A key limitation of this study is that we did not exclude any experiments from analysis to control for quality of the collected data, perhaps leading to confounding factors.