A symbolic information approach to characterize response-related differences in cortical activity during a Go/No-Go task

TL;DR

This study uses information theory and symbolic analysis to distinguish brain activity differences during Go/No-Go tasks in monkeys, revealing key time scales of information processing.

Contribution

It introduces a symbolic information approach with Bandt-Pompe methodology and asymmetry index to analyze response-related neural differences in a cognitive task.

Findings

Bandt-Pompe entropy and complexity differentiate trial types

Asymmetry index validates response-related differences

Multi-scale analysis identifies relevant processing time scales

Abstract

How the brain processes information from external stimuli in order to perceive the world and act on it is one of the greatest questions in neuroscience. To address this question different time series analyzes techniques have been employed to characterize the statistical properties of brain signals during cognitive tasks. Typically response-specific processes are addressed by comparing the time course of average event-related potentials in different trials type. Here we analyze monkey Local Field Potentials data during visual pattern discrimination called Go/No-Go task in the light of information theory quantifiers. We show that the Bandt-Pompe symbolization methodology to calculate entropy and complexity of data is a useful tool to distinguish response-related differences between Go and No-Go trials. We propose to use an asymmetry index to statistically validate trial type differences. Moreover, by using the multi-scale approach and embedding time delays to downsample the data we can estimate the important time scales in which the relevant information is been processed.