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Research ArticleNew Research, Cognition and Behavior

Specific Relationship between the Shape of the Readiness Potential, Subjective Decision Time, and Waiting Time Predicted by an Accumulator Model with Temporally Autocorrelated Input Noise

Aaron Schurger
eNeuro 23 January 2018, 5 (1) ENEURO.0302-17.2018; https://doi.org/10.1523/ENEURO.0302-17.2018
Aaron Schurger
1Cognitive Neuroimaging Unit, INSERM, Gif sur Yvette 91191, France
2Commissariat à l’Energie Atomique, NeuroSpin Center, Gif sur Yvette 91191, France
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Abstract

Self-initiated movements are reliably preceded by a gradual buildup of neuronal activity known as the readiness potential (RP). Recent evidence suggests that the RP may reflect subthreshold stochastic fluctuations in neural activity that can be modeled as a process of accumulation to bound. One element of accumulator models that has been largely overlooked in the literature is the stochastic term, which is traditionally modeled as Gaussian white noise. While there may be practical reasons for this choice, we have long known that noise in neural systems is not white – it is long-term correlated with spectral density of the form 1/fβ(with roughly 1 < β < 3) across a broad range of spatial scales. I explored the behavior of a leaky stochastic accumulator when the noise over which it accumulates is temporally autocorrelated. I also allowed for the possibility that the RP, as measured at the scalp, might reflect the input to the accumulator (i.e., its stochastic noise component) rather than its output. These two premises led to two novel predictions that I empirically confirmed on behavioral and electroencephalography data from human subjects performing a self-initiated movement task. In addition to generating these two predictions, the model also suggested biologically plausible levels of autocorrelation, consistent with the degree of autocorrelation in our empirical data and in prior reports. These results expose new perspectives for accumulator models by suggesting that the spectral properties of the stochastic input should be allowed to vary, consistent with the nature of biological neural noise.

  • autocorrelation
  • Bereitschaftspotential
  • leaky stochastic accumulator
  • readiness potential
  • voluntary action

Footnotes

  • The authors declare no competing financial interests.

  • A.S. was supported by the European Research Council Starting Grant 640626.

This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license, which permits unrestricted use, distribution and reproduction in any medium provided that the original work is properly attributed.

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Specific Relationship between the Shape of the Readiness Potential, Subjective Decision Time, and Waiting Time Predicted by an Accumulator Model with Temporally Autocorrelated Input Noise
Aaron Schurger
eNeuro 23 January 2018, 5 (1) ENEURO.0302-17.2018; DOI: 10.1523/ENEURO.0302-17.2018

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Specific Relationship between the Shape of the Readiness Potential, Subjective Decision Time, and Waiting Time Predicted by an Accumulator Model with Temporally Autocorrelated Input Noise
Aaron Schurger
eNeuro 23 January 2018, 5 (1) ENEURO.0302-17.2018; DOI: 10.1523/ENEURO.0302-17.2018
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Keywords

  • autocorrelation
  • Bereitschaftspotential
  • leaky stochastic accumulator
  • readiness potential
  • voluntary action

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