Neuronal ensembleA neuronal ensemble is a population of nervous system cells (or cultured neurons) involved in a particular neural computation. The concept of neuronal ensemble dates back to the work of Charles Sherrington who described the functioning of the CNS as the system of reflex arcs, each composed of interconnected excitatory and inhibitory neurons. In Sherrington's scheme, α-motoneurons are the final common path of a number of neural circuits of different complexity: motoneurons integrate a large number of inputs and send their final output to muscles.
Cognitive scienceCognitive science is the interdisciplinary, scientific study of the mind and its processes with input from linguistics, psychology, neuroscience, philosophy, computer science/artificial intelligence, and anthropology. It examines the nature, the tasks, and the functions of cognition (in a broad sense). Cognitive scientists study intelligence and behavior, with a focus on how nervous systems represent, process, and transform information.
Stimulus (physiology)In physiology, a stimulus is a detectable change in the physical or chemical structure of an organism's internal or external environment. The ability of an organism or organ to detect external stimuli, so that an appropriate reaction can be made, is called sensitivity (excitability). Sensory receptors can receive information from outside the body, as in touch receptors found in the skin or light receptors in the eye, as well as from inside the body, as in chemoreceptors and mechanoreceptors.
Lateralized readiness potentialIn neuroscience, the lateralized readiness potential (LRP) is an event-related brain potential, or increase in electrical activity at the surface of the brain, that is thought to reflect the preparation of motor activity on a certain side of the body; in other words, it is a spike in the electrical activity of the brain that happens when a person gets ready to move one arm, leg, or foot. It is a special form of bereitschaftspotential (a general pre-motor potential).
Human brainThe human brain is the central organ of the human nervous system, and with the spinal cord makes up the central nervous system. The brain consists of the cerebrum, the brainstem and the cerebellum. It controls most of the activities of the body, processing, integrating, and coordinating the information it receives from the sense organs, and making decisions as to the instructions sent to the rest of the body. The brain is contained in, and protected by, the skull bones of the head.
BereitschaftspotentialIn neurology, the Bereitschaftspotential or BP (German for "readiness potential"), also called the pre-motor potential or readiness potential (RP), is a measure of activity in the motor cortex and supplementary motor area of the brain leading up to voluntary muscle movement. The BP is a manifestation of cortical contribution to the pre-motor planning of volitional movement. It was first recorded and reported in 1964 by Hans Helmut Kornhuber and Lüder Deecke at the University of Freiburg in Germany.
Brain-readingBrain-reading or thought identification uses the responses of multiple voxels in the brain evoked by stimulus then detected by fMRI in order to decode the original stimulus. Advances in research have made this possible by using human neuroimaging to decode a person's conscious experience based on non-invasive measurements of an individual's brain activity. Brain reading studies differ in the type of decoding (i.e. classification, identification and reconstruction) employed, the target (i.e.
Empirical distribution functionIn statistics, an empirical distribution function (commonly also called an empirical cumulative distribution function, eCDF) is the distribution function associated with the empirical measure of a sample. This cumulative distribution function is a step function that jumps up by 1/n at each of the n data points. Its value at any specified value of the measured variable is the fraction of observations of the measured variable that are less than or equal to the specified value.
Randomized controlled trialA randomized controlled trial (or randomized control trial; RCT) is a form of scientific experiment used to control factors not under direct experimental control. Examples of RCTs are clinical trials that compare the effects of drugs, surgical techniques, medical devices, diagnostic procedures or other medical treatments. Participants who enroll in RCTs differ from one another in known and unknown ways that can influence study outcomes, and yet cannot be directly controlled.
Statistical assumptionStatistics, like all mathematical disciplines, does not infer valid conclusions from nothing. Inferring interesting conclusions about real statistical populations almost always requires some background assumptions. Those assumptions must be made carefully, because incorrect assumptions can generate wildly inaccurate conclusions. Here are some examples of statistical assumptions: Independence of observations from each other (this assumption is an especially common error). Independence of observational error from potential confounding effects.
