Michel Besserve | Empirical Inference - Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems

Michel Besserve
Senior Research Scientist

Empirical Inference

Office: N4.008
Spemannstr. 34
72076 Tübingen
Germany

+49 7071 601 541

+49 7071 601 552

Overview
Publications

We develop machine learning and statistical tools to study cooperative phenomena occurring in brain activity at multiple scales.

Biological neural networks are characterized by strong recurrence, and widespread, bidirectional connectivity at multiple scales. From this structure emerges a complex dynamics where elements of this network cooperate at different levels to give rise, for example, to coherent behaviors and percepts. This complexity manifests itself as collective oscillations as well as more complex dymamical patterns such as Sharp-wave ripple complexes, that can be observed in electrical brain activity. These neural events are believed to play a key role in information processing, learning and behavior. Our research aims at designing better techniques to detect these events and understand their underlying mechanisms and computational role.

In order to address these questions, we put an emphasis on developing new Machine learning tools with strong theoretical foundations that are particularly well suited to capture the complexity of Biological signals. These include unsupervised learning algorithms to identify relevant patterns in large neural recording datasets [ ], non-parametric statistical tools (based on kernel methods) to identify the complex statistical dependencies of biological signals [ ], as well as causal inference methods to infer the underlying mechanisms generating the data [ ].

Finally, our work on empirical biological data also leads us to rethink the principles underlying learning [ ] and causality [ ].

33 results (BibTeX)

2017

Group invariance principles for causal generative models

Besserve, M., Shajarisales, N., Schölkopf, B., Janzing, D.

2017 (unpublished) Submitted

Arxiv [BibTex]

2017

Besserve, M., Shajarisales, N., Schölkopf, B., Janzing, D. Group invariance principles for causal generative models 2017 (unpublished) Submitted

Arxiv [BibTex]

2016

PGO wave-triggered functional MRI: mapping the networks underlying synaptic consolidation

Logothetis, N. K., Murayama, Y., Ramirez-Villegas, J. F., Besserve, M., Evrard, H.

47th Annual Meeting of the Society for Neuroscience (Neuroscience), 2016 (poster)

[BibTex]

2016

Logothetis, N. K., Murayama, Y., Ramirez-Villegas, J. F., Besserve, M., Evrard, H. PGO wave-triggered functional MRI: mapping the networks underlying synaptic consolidation 47th Annual Meeting of the Society for Neuroscience (Neuroscience), 2016 (poster)

[BibTex]

Hippocampal neural events predict ongoing brain-wide BOLD activity

Besserve, M., Logothetis, N. K.

47th Annual Meeting of the Society for Neuroscience (Neuroscience), 2016 (poster)

[BibTex]

Besserve, M., Logothetis, N. K. Hippocampal neural events predict ongoing brain-wide BOLD activity 47th Annual Meeting of the Society for Neuroscience (Neuroscience), 2016 (poster)

[BibTex]

Statistical source separation of rhythmic LFP patterns during sharp wave ripples in the macaque hippocampus

Ramirez-Villegas, J. F., Logothetis, N. K., Besserve, M.

47th Annual Meeting of the Society for Neuroscience (Neuroscience), 2016 (poster)

[BibTex]

Ramirez-Villegas, J. F., Logothetis, N. K., Besserve, M. Statistical source separation of rhythmic LFP patterns during sharp wave ripples in the macaque hippocampus 47th Annual Meeting of the Society for Neuroscience (Neuroscience), 2016 (poster)

[BibTex]

2015

Diversity of sharp wave-ripples in the CA1 of the macaque hippocampus and their brain wide signatures

Ramirez-Villegas, J. F., Logothetis, N. K., Besserve, M.

45th Annual Meeting of the Society for Neuroscience (Neuroscience 2015), October 2015 (poster)

link (url) [BibTex]

2015

Ramirez-Villegas, J. F., Logothetis, N. K., Besserve, M. Diversity of sharp wave-ripples in the CA1 of the macaque hippocampus and their brain wide signatures 45th Annual Meeting of the Society for Neuroscience (Neuroscience 2015), October 2015 (poster)

link (url) [BibTex]

Causal Inference for Empirical Time Series Based on the Postulate of Independence of Cause and Mechanism

Besserve, M.

53rd Annual Allerton Conference on Communication, Control, and Computing, September 2015 (talk)

[BibTex]

Besserve, M. Causal Inference for Empirical Time Series Based on the Postulate of Independence of Cause and Mechanism 53rd Annual Allerton Conference on Communication, Control, and Computing, September 2015 (talk)

[BibTex]

Independence of cause and mechanism in brain networks

Besserve, M.

DALI workshop on Networks: Processes and Causality, April 2015 (talk)

[BibTex]

Besserve, M. Independence of cause and mechanism in brain networks DALI workshop on Networks: Processes and Causality, April 2015 (talk)

[BibTex]

Diversity of sharp wave-ripple LFP signatures reveals differentiated brain-wide dynamical events

Ramirez-Villegas, J. F., Logothetis, N. K., Besserve, M.

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences U.S.A, 112(46):E6379-E6387, November 2015 (article)

DOI Project Page [BibTex]

Ramirez-Villegas, J. F., Logothetis, N. K., Besserve, M. Diversity of sharp wave-ripple LFP signatures reveals differentiated brain-wide dynamical events Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences U.S.A, 112(46):E6379-E6387, November 2015 (article)

DOI Project Page [BibTex]

Shifts of Gamma Phase across Primary Visual Cortical Sites Reflect Dynamic Stimulus-Modulated Information Transfer

Besserve, M., Lowe, S. C., Logothetis, N. K., Schölkopf, B., Panzeri, S.

PLOS Biology, 13(9):e1002257, September 2015 (article)

DOI Project Page [BibTex]

Besserve, M., Lowe, S. C., Logothetis, N. K., Schölkopf, B., Panzeri, S. Shifts of Gamma Phase across Primary Visual Cortical Sites Reflect Dynamic Stimulus-Modulated Information Transfer PLOS Biology, 13(9):e1002257, September 2015 (article)

DOI Project Page [BibTex]

Telling cause from effect in deterministic linear dynamical systems

Shajarisales, N., Janzing, D., Schölkopf, B., Besserve, M.

In Proceedings of the 32nd International Conference on Machine Learning, 37, pages: 285–294, JMLR Workshop and Conference Proceedings, (Editors: F. Bach and D. Blei), JMLR, ICML, 2015 (inproceedings)

PDF Project Page Project Page [BibTex]

Shajarisales, N., Janzing, D., Schölkopf, B., Besserve, M. Telling cause from effect in deterministic linear dynamical systems In Proceedings of the 32nd International Conference on Machine Learning, 37, pages: 285–294, JMLR Workshop and Conference Proceedings, (Editors: F. Bach and D. Blei), JMLR, ICML, 2015 (inproceedings)

PDF Project Page Project Page [BibTex]

2014

Quantifying statistical dependency

Besserve, M.

Research Network on Learning Systems Summer School, 2014 (talk)

[BibTex]

2014

Besserve, M. Quantifying statistical dependency Research Network on Learning Systems Summer School, 2014 (talk)

[BibTex]

Unsupervised identification of neural events in local field potentials

Besserve, M., Schölkopf, B., Logothetis, N. K.

44th Annual Meeting of the Society for Neuroscience (Neuroscience), 2014 (talk)

[BibTex]

Besserve, M., Schölkopf, B., Logothetis, N. K. Unsupervised identification of neural events in local field potentials 44th Annual Meeting of the Society for Neuroscience (Neuroscience), 2014 (talk)

[BibTex]

Dynamical source analysis of hippocampal sharp-wave ripple episodes

Ramirez-Villegas, J. F., Logothetis, N. K., Besserve, M.

Bernstein Conference, 2014 (poster)

DOI [BibTex]

Ramirez-Villegas, J. F., Logothetis, N. K., Besserve, M. Dynamical source analysis of hippocampal sharp-wave ripple episodes Bernstein Conference, 2014 (poster)

DOI [BibTex]

Cluster analysis of sharp-wave ripple field potential signatures in the macaque hippocampus

Ramirez-Villegas, J. F., Logothetis, N. K., Besserve, M.

Computational and Systems Neuroscience Meeting (COSYNE), 2014 (poster)

[BibTex]

Ramirez-Villegas, J. F., Logothetis, N. K., Besserve, M. Cluster analysis of sharp-wave ripple field potential signatures in the macaque hippocampus Computational and Systems Neuroscience Meeting (COSYNE), 2014 (poster)

[BibTex]

2013

Coupling between spiking activity and beta band spatio-temporal patterns in the macaque PFC

Safavi, S., Panagiotaropoulos, T., Kapoor, V., Logothetis, N., Besserve, M.

43rd Annual Meeting of the Society for Neuroscience (Neuroscience), 2013 (poster)

[BibTex]

2013

Safavi, S., Panagiotaropoulos, T., Kapoor, V., Logothetis, N., Besserve, M. Coupling between spiking activity and beta band spatio-temporal patterns in the macaque PFC 43rd Annual Meeting of the Society for Neuroscience (Neuroscience), 2013 (poster)

[BibTex]

Analyzing locking of spikes to spatio-temporal patterns in the macaque prefrontal cortex

Safavi, S., Panagiotaropoulos, T., Kapoor, V., Logothetis, N., Besserve, M.

Bernstein Conference, 2013 (poster)

DOI [BibTex]

Safavi, S., Panagiotaropoulos, T., Kapoor, V., Logothetis, N., Besserve, M. Analyzing locking of spikes to spatio-temporal patterns in the macaque prefrontal cortex Bernstein Conference, 2013 (poster)

DOI [BibTex]

Studying large-scale brain networks: electrical stimulation and neural-event-triggered fMRI

Logothetis, N., Eschenko, O., Murayama, Y., Augath, M., Steudel, T., Evrard, H., Besserve, M., Oeltermann, A.

Twenty-Second Annual Computational Neuroscience Meeting (CNS*2013), July 2013, journal = {BMC Neuroscience}, year = {2013}, month = {7}, volume = {14}, number = {Supplement 1}, pages = {A1}, (talk)

Web [BibTex]

Logothetis, N., Eschenko, O., Murayama, Y., Augath, M., Steudel, T., Evrard, H., Besserve, M., Oeltermann, A. Studying large-scale brain networks: electrical stimulation and neural-event-triggered fMRI Twenty-Second Annual Computational Neuroscience Meeting (CNS*2013), July 2013, journal = {BMC Neuroscience}, year = {2013}, month = {7}, volume = {14}, number = {Supplement 1}, pages = {A1}, (talk)

Web [BibTex]

Characterization of different types of sharp-wave ripple signatures in the CA1 of the macaque hippocampus

Ramirez-Villegas, J., Logothetis, N., Besserve, M.

4th German Neurophysiology PhD Meeting Networks, 2013 (poster)

Web [BibTex]

Ramirez-Villegas, J., Logothetis, N., Besserve, M. Characterization of different types of sharp-wave ripple signatures in the CA1 of the macaque hippocampus 4th German Neurophysiology PhD Meeting Networks, 2013 (poster)

Web [BibTex]

Metabolic cost as an organizing principle for cooperative learning

Balduzzi, D., Ortega, P., Besserve, M.

Advances in Complex Systems, 16(02n03):1350012, 2013 (article)

Web DOI Project Page [BibTex]

Balduzzi, D., Ortega, P., Besserve, M. Metabolic cost as an organizing principle for cooperative learning Advances in Complex Systems, 16(02n03):1350012, 2013 (article)

Web DOI Project Page [BibTex]

Statistical analysis of coupled time series with Kernel Cross-Spectral Density operators

Besserve, M., Logothetis, N., Schölkopf, B.

In Advances in Neural Information Processing Systems 26, pages: 2535-2543, (Editors: C.J.C. Burges, L. Bottou, M. Welling, Z. Ghahramani, and K.Q. Weinberger), 27th Annual Conference on Neural Information Processing Systems (NIPS), 2013 (inproceedings)

PDF Project Page Project Page [BibTex]

Besserve, M., Logothetis, N., Schölkopf, B. Statistical analysis of coupled time series with Kernel Cross-Spectral Density operators In Advances in Neural Information Processing Systems 26, pages: 2535-2543, (Editors: C.J.C. Burges, L. Bottou, M. Welling, Z. Ghahramani, and K.Q. Weinberger), 27th Annual Conference on Neural Information Processing Systems (NIPS), 2013 (inproceedings)

PDF Project Page Project Page [BibTex]

Multimodal information improves the rapid detection of mental fatigue

Laurent, F., Valderrama, M., Besserve, M., Guillard, M., Lachaux, J., Martinerie, J., Florence, G.

Biomedical Signal Processing and Control, 8(4):400 - 408, 2013 (article)

Web DOI [BibTex]

Laurent, F., Valderrama, M., Besserve, M., Guillard, M., Lachaux, J., Martinerie, J., Florence, G. Multimodal information improves the rapid detection of mental fatigue Biomedical Signal Processing and Control, 8(4):400 - 408, 2013 (article)

Web DOI [BibTex]

2012

Identifying endogenous rhythmic spatio-temporal patterns in micro-electrode array recordings

Besserve, M., Panagiotaropoulos, T., Crocker, B., Kapoor, V., Tolias, A., Panzeri, S., Logothetis, N.

9th annual Computational and Systems Neuroscience meeting (Cosyne), 2012 (poster)

[BibTex]

2012

Besserve, M., Panagiotaropoulos, T., Crocker, B., Kapoor, V., Tolias, A., Panzeri, S., Logothetis, N. Identifying endogenous rhythmic spatio-temporal patterns in micro-electrode array recordings 9th annual Computational and Systems Neuroscience meeting (Cosyne), 2012 (poster)

[BibTex]

Centrality of the Mammalian Functional Brain Network

Besserve, M., Bartels, A., Murayama, Y., Logothetis, N.

42nd Annual Meeting of the Society for Neuroscience (Neuroscience), 2012 (poster)

[BibTex]

Besserve, M., Bartels, A., Murayama, Y., Logothetis, N. Centrality of the Mammalian Functional Brain Network 42nd Annual Meeting of the Society for Neuroscience (Neuroscience), 2012 (poster)

[BibTex]

Towards a learning-theoretic analysis of spike-timing dependent plasticity

Balduzzi, D., Besserve, M.

In Advances in Neural Information Processing Systems 25, pages: 2465-2473, (Editors: P Bartlett and FCN Pereira and CJC. Burges and L Bottou and KQ Weinberger), Curran Associates Inc., 26th Annual Conference on Neural Information Processing Systems (NIPS), 2012 (inproceedings)

PDF Project Page [BibTex]

Balduzzi, D., Besserve, M. Towards a learning-theoretic analysis of spike-timing dependent plasticity In Advances in Neural Information Processing Systems 25, pages: 2465-2473, (Editors: P Bartlett and FCN Pereira and CJC. Burges and L Bottou and KQ Weinberger), Curran Associates Inc., 26th Annual Conference on Neural Information Processing Systems (NIPS), 2012 (inproceedings)

PDF Project Page [BibTex]

Hippocampal-Cortical Interaction during Periods of Subcortical Silence

Logothetis, N., Eschenko, O., Murayama, Y., Augath, M., Steudel, T., Evrard, H., Besserve, M., Oeltermann, A.

Nature, 491, pages: 547-553, November 2012 (article)

Abstract

Hippocampal ripples, episodic high-frequency field-potential oscillations primarily occurring during sleep and calmness, have been described in mice, rats, rabbits, monkeys and humans, and so far they have been associated with retention of previously acquired awake experience. Although hippocampal ripples have been studied in detail using neurophysiological methods, the global effects of ripples on the entire brain remain elusive, primarily owing to a lack of methodologies permitting concurrent hippocampal recordings and whole-brain activity mapping. By combining electrophysiological recordings in hippocampus with ripple-triggered functional magnetic resonance imaging, here we show that most of the cerebral cortex is selectively activated during the ripples, whereas most diencephalic, midbrain and brainstem regions are strongly and consistently inhibited. Analysis of regional temporal response patterns indicates that thalamic activity suppression precedes the hippocampal population burst, which itself is temporally bounded by massive activations of association and primary cortical areas. These findings suggest that during off-line memory consolidation, synergistic thalamocortical activity may be orchestrating a privileged interaction state between hippocampus and cortex by silencing the output of subcortical centres involved in sensory processing or potentially mediating procedural learning. Such a mechanism would cause minimal interference, enabling consolidation of hippocampus-dependent memory.

Web DOI Project Page [BibTex]

Logothetis, N., Eschenko, O., Murayama, Y., Augath, M., Steudel, T., Evrard, H., Besserve, M., Oeltermann, A. Hippocampal-Cortical Interaction during Periods of Subcortical Silence Nature, 491, pages: 547-553, November 2012 (article)

Web DOI Project Page [BibTex]

Beta oscillations propagate as traveling waves in the macaque prefrontal cortex

Panagiotaropoulos, T., Besserve, M., Logothetis, N.

42nd Annual Meeting of the Society for Neuroscience (Neuroscience), 2012 (talk)

[BibTex]

Panagiotaropoulos, T., Besserve, M., Logothetis, N. Beta oscillations propagate as traveling waves in the macaque prefrontal cortex 42nd Annual Meeting of the Society for Neuroscience (Neuroscience), 2012 (talk)

[BibTex]

2011

Finding dependencies between frequencies with the kernel cross-spectral density

Besserve, M., Janzing, D., Logothetis, N., Schölkopf, B.

In pages: 2080-2083 , IEEE, Piscataway, NJ, USA, IEEE International Conference on Acoustics, Speech and Signal Processing (ICASSP) , May 2011 (inproceedings)

Abstract

Cross-spectral density (CSD), is widely used to find linear dependency between two real or complex valued time series. We define a non-linear extension of this measure by mapping the time series into two Reproducing Kernel Hilbert Spaces. The dependency is quantified by the Hilbert Schmidt norm of a cross-spectral density operator between these two spaces. We prove that, by choosing a characteristic kernel for the mapping, this quantity detects any pairwise dependency between the time series. Then we provide a fast estimator for the Hilbert-Schmidt norm based on the Fast Fourier Trans form. We demonstrate the interest of this approach to quantify non-linear dependencies between frequency bands of simulated signals and intra-cortical neural recordings.

Web DOI Project Page Project Page [BibTex]

2011

Besserve, M., Janzing, D., Logothetis, N., Schölkopf, B. Finding dependencies between frequencies with the kernel cross-spectral density In pages: 2080-2083 , IEEE, Piscataway, NJ, USA, IEEE International Conference on Acoustics, Speech and Signal Processing (ICASSP) , May 2011 (inproceedings)

Web DOI Project Page Project Page [BibTex]

Dynamics of excitable neural networks with heterogeneous connectivity

Chavez, M., Besserve, M., Le Van Quyen, M.

Progress in Biophysics and Molecular Biology, 105(1-2):29-33, March 2011 (article)

Abstract

A central issue of neuroscience is to understand how neural units integrates internal and external signals to create coherent states. Recently, it has been shown that the sensitivity and dynamic range of neural assemblies are optimal at a critical coupling among its elements. Complex architectures of connections seem to play a constructive role on the reliable coordination of neural units. Here we show that, the synchronizability and sensitivity of excitable neural networks can be tuned by diversity in the connections strengths. We illustrate our findings for weighted networks with regular, random and complex topologies. Additional comparisons of real brain networks support previous studies suggesting that heterogeneity in the connectivity may play a constructive role on information processing. These findings provide insights into the relationship between structure and function of neural circuits.

PDF DOI [BibTex]

Chavez, M., Besserve, M., Le Van Quyen, M. Dynamics of excitable neural networks with heterogeneous connectivity Progress in Biophysics and Molecular Biology, 105(1-2):29-33, March 2011 (article)

PDF DOI [BibTex]

Spatiotemporal mapping of rhythmic activity in the inferior convexity of the macaque prefrontal cortex

Panagiotaropoulos, T., Besserve, M., Crocker, B., Kapoor, V., Tolias, A., Panzeri, S., Logothetis, N.

41(239.15), 41st Annual Meeting of the Society for Neuroscience (Neuroscience), November 2011 (poster)

Abstract

The inferior convexity of the macaque prefrontal cortex (icPFC) is known to be involved in higher order processing of sensory information mediating stimulus selection, attention and working memory. Until now, the vast majority of electrophysiological investigations of the icPFC employed single electrode recordings. As a result, relatively little is known about the spatiotemporal structure of neuronal activity in this cortical area. Here we study in detail the spatiotemporal properties of local field potentials (LFP's) in the icPFC using multi electrode recordings during anesthesia. We computed the LFP-LFP coherence as a function of frequency for thousands of pairs of simultaneously recorded sites anterior to the arcuate and inferior to the principal sulcus. We observed two distinct peaks of coherent oscillatory activity between approximately 4-10 and 15-25 Hz. We then quantified the instantaneous phase of these frequency bands using the Hilbert transform and found robust phase gradients across recording sites. The dependency of the phase on the spatial location reflects the existence of traveling waves of electrical activity in the icPFC. The dominant axis of these traveling waves roughly followed the ventral-dorsal plane. Preliminary results show that repeated visual stimulation with a 10s movie had no dramatic effect on the spatial structure of the traveling waves. Traveling waves of electrical activity in the icPFC could reflect highly organized cortical processing in this area of prefrontal cortex.

Web [BibTex]

Panagiotaropoulos, T., Besserve, M., Crocker, B., Kapoor, V., Tolias, A., Panzeri, S., Logothetis, N. Spatiotemporal mapping of rhythmic activity in the inferior convexity of the macaque prefrontal cortex 41(239.15), 41st Annual Meeting of the Society for Neuroscience (Neuroscience), November 2011 (poster)

Web [BibTex]

Improving quantification of functional networks with EEG inverse problem: Evidence from a decoding point of view

Besserve, M., Martinerie, J., Garnero, L.

NeuroImage, 55(4):1536-1547, April 2011 (article)

Abstract

Decoding experimental conditions from single trial Electroencephalographic (EEG) signals is becoming a major challenge for the study of brain function and real-time applications such as Brain Computer Interface. EEG source reconstruction offers principled ways to estimate the cortical activities from EEG signals. But to what extent it can enhance informative brain signals in single trial has not been addressed in a general setting. We tested this using the minimum norm estimate solution (MNE) to estimate spectral power and coherence features at the cortical level. With a fast implementation, we computed a support vector machine (SVM) classifier output from these quantities in real-time, without prior on the relevant functional networks. We applied this approach to single trial decoding of ongoing mental imagery tasks using EEG data recorded in 5 subjects. Our results show that reconstructing the underlying cortical network dynamics significantly outperforms a usual electrode level approach in terms of information transfer and also reduces redundancy between coherence and power features, supporting a decrease of volume conduction effects. Additionally, the classifier coefficients reflect the most informative features of network activity, showing an important contribution of localized motor and sensory brain areas, and of coherence between areas up to 6 cm distance. This study provides a computationally efficient and interpretable strategy to extract information from functional networks at the cortical level in single trial. Moreover, this sets a general framework to evaluate the performance of EEG source reconstruction methods by their decoding abilities.

Web DOI Project Page [BibTex]

Besserve, M., Martinerie, J., Garnero, L. Improving quantification of functional networks with EEG inverse problem: Evidence from a decoding point of view NeuroImage, 55(4):1536-1547, April 2011 (article)

Web DOI Project Page [BibTex]

Extraction of functional information from ongoing brain electrical activity: Extraction en temps-réel d’informations fonctionnelles à partir de l’activité électrique cérébrale

Besserve, M., Martinerie, J.

IRBM, 32(1):27-34, February 2011 (article)

Abstract

The modern analysis of multivariate electrical brain signals requires advanced statistical tools to automatically extract and quantify their information content. These tools include machine learning techniques and information theory. They are currently used both in basic neuroscience and challenging applications such as brain computer interfaces. We review here how these methods have been used at the Laboratoire d’Électroencéphalographie et de Neurophysiologie Appliquée (LENA) to develop a general tool for the real time analysis of functional brain signals. We then give some perspectives on how these tools can help understanding the biological mechanisms of information processing.

PDF DOI [BibTex]

Besserve, M., Martinerie, J. Extraction of functional information from ongoing brain electrical activity: Extraction en temps-réel d’informations fonctionnelles à partir de l’activité électrique cérébrale IRBM, 32(1):27-34, February 2011 (article)

PDF DOI [BibTex]

2010

High frequency phase-spike synchronization of extracellular signals modulates causal interactions in monkey primary visual cortex

Besserve, M., Murayama, Y., Schölkopf, B., Logothetis, N., Panzeri, S.

40(616.2), 40th Annual Meeting of the Society for Neuroscience (Neuroscience), November 2010 (poster)

Abstract

Functional correlates of Rhythms in the gamma band (30-100Hz) are observed in the mammalian brain with a large variety of functional correlates. Nevertheless, their functional role is still debated. One way to disentangle this issue is to go beyond usual correlation analysis and apply causality measures that quantify the directed interactions between the gamma rhythms and other aspects of neural activity. These measures can be further compared with other aspects of neurophysicological signals to find markers of neural interactions. In a recent study, we analyzed extracellular recordings in the primary visual cortex of 4 anesthetized macaques during the presentation of movie stimuli using a causality measure named Transfer Entropy. We found causal interactions between high frequency gamma rhythms (60-100Hz) recorded in different electrodes, involving in particular their phase, and between the gamma phase and spiking activity quantified by the instantaneous envelope of the MUA band (1-3kHz). Here, we further investigate in the same dataset the meaning of these phase-MUA and phase-phase causal interactions by studying the distribution of phases at multiple recording sites at lags around the occurrence of spiking events. First, we found a sharpening of the gamma phase distribution in one electrode when spikes are occurring in other recording site. This phenomena appeared as a form of phase-spike synchronization and was quantified by an information theoretic measure. We found this measure correlates significantly with phase-MUA causal interactions. Additionally, we quantified in a similar way the interplay between spiking and the phase difference between two recording sites (reflecting the well-know concept of phase synchronization). We found that, depending on the couple of recording site, spiking can correlate either with a phase synchronization or with a desynchronization with respect to the baseline. This effect correlates very well with the phase-phase causality measure. These results provide evidence for high frequency phase-spike synchronization to reflect communication between distant neural populations in V1. Conversely, both phase synchronization or desynchronization may favor neural communication between recording sites. This new result, which contrasts with current hypothesis on the role of phase synchronization, could be interpreted as the presence of inhibitory interactions that are suppressed by desynchronization. Finally, our findings give new insights into the role of gamma rhythms in regulating local computation in the visual cortex.

Web [BibTex]