Fig. 1.

Single spike trains accurately predict complex stimuli. (A) Individual whiskers were stimulated 10 mm from their base by a piezoelectric device with white noise stimuli (10 to 25 Hz, 10 to 125 Hz, or 10 to 625 Hz) applied in each neuron's preferred direction. Upward deflections are in the preferred direction; downward deflections, opposite direction. Variability in stimulus waveforms was less than 5%. (B) Peristimulus rasters (top) and histograms (bottom) recorded from a trigeminal ganglion neuron in response to 50 presentations of each stimulus. Spikes were sampled at 10 kHz and sorted. msec, milliseconds. (C) Predictions (red) of actual stimulus (black) position, velocity, and acceleration at the three frequencies tested. (D) Individual spike trains used to compute the stimulus predictions in (C). (E) Kernels calculated for each of the stimulus parameters predicted in (C), with cross-correlation values between the original and predicted waveforms below the curves. Pos, position; Vel, velocity; Acc, acceleration.