Work

Decoding cortical brain states from widefield calcium imaging data using visibility graph

Year: 2018

Type: article

Abstract: Widefield optical imaging of neuronal populations over large portions of the cerebral cortex in awake behaving animals provides a unique opportunity for investigating the relationship between brain function and behavior. In this paper, we demonstrate that the temporal characteristics of calcium dynamics obtained through widefield imaging can be utilized to infer the corresponding behavior. Cortical activity in transgenic calcium reporter mice (n=6) expressing GCaMP6f in neocortical pyramidal neurons is recorded during active whisking (AW) and no whisking (NW). To extract features related to the temporal characteristics of calcium recordings, a method based on visibility graph (VG) is introduced. An extensive study considering different choices of features and classifiers is conducted to find the best model capable of predicting AW and NW from calcium recordings. Our experimental results show that temporal characteristics of calcium recordings identified by the proposed method carry discriminatory information that are powerful enough for decoding behavior.

Source: Biomedical Optics Express

DOI: 10.1364/boe.9.003017

Authors: Li Zhu, Christian R. Lee, David J. Margolis, Laleh Najafizadeh

Institution: Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey

Language: English

Topic: Neural dynamics and brain function

Subfield: Cognitive Neuroscience

Field: Neuroscience

Domain: Life Sciences

Open Access status: gold

Estimated APC paid: $1,913

Funders: National Science Foundation, New Jersey Commission on Brain Injury Research, Siemens, National Institutes of Health