Equation 7 · What a Neural Recording Actually Records
What does this equation mean?
Read the formula alongside the article passage below. Each part has a deeper page with its role in the equation, the supporting passage and nearby citations.
This mathematical expression combines the displayed quantities; its precise role follows from the surrounding article text. Read the equation part by part below; each part has a contextual explanation and a link to its mathematical background.
Read it piece by piece
Symbol n
n is a part of this expression. Its role is fixed by the surrounding article and by the operations shown in the formula.
How to interpret it
Read this expression with the definitions, units, and assumptions supplied by the article.
What the article says around this equation
The empirical question of what n should be was addressed directly by Logothetis, Pauls, Augath, Trinath and Oeltermann, who recorded neural signals and BOLD simultaneously in monkey visual cortex. They found that local field potentials gave a better estimate of the BOLD response than multi-unit spiking did, and that at recording sites with transient responses the field potential was the only signal that significantly correlated with the haemodynamic response; they concluded that the signal reflects the input and intracortical processing of an area rather than its spiking output [ 10 ] . Logothetis later set out the general position at length, arguing that the ultimate limitations of the…
Read the full surrounding passage
The empirical question of what n should be was addressed directly by Logothetis, Pauls, Augath, Trinath and Oeltermann, who recorded neural signals and BOLD simultaneously in monkey visual cortex. They found that local field potentials gave a better estimate of the BOLD response than multi-unit spiking did, and that at recording sites with transient responses the field potential was the only signal that significantly correlated with the haemodynamic response; they concluded that the signal reflects the input and intracortical processing of an area rather than its spiking output [ 10 ] . Logothetis later set out the general position at length, arguing that the ultimate limitations of the method follow from the fact that it reflects mass action rather than from hardware, and that conclusions drawn from imaging data often ignore the actual limitations of the methodology [ 11 ] .
Sources cited in the surrounding passage
- [10] Neurophysiological investigation of the basis of the fMRI signal ↗
- [11] What we can do and what we cannot do with fMRI ↗
These citations give research context. Read each source to check which claims it supports.