Chapter 21: Information-Theoretic Approaches to Pattern Analysis
Stefano Panzeri and Robin A. A. Ince
Instituto Italiano de Tecnologia (IIT)
University of Manchester
In this chapter, we review an information-theoretic approach to the analysis of simultaneous recordings of neural activity from multiple locations. This approach is relevant to the understanding of how the central nervous system combines and evaluates the messages carried by different neurons. We review how to quantify the information carried by a neural population and how to quantify the contribution of individual members of the population, or the interaction between them, to the overall information encoded by the considered neuronal population. We illustrate the usefulness of the information-theoretic approach to neural population coding by presenting examples of its applications to simultaneous recordings of multiple spike trains and/or of local field potentials (LFPs) from visual and somatosensory cortices.