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The brain s neural activity is irregular, changing from one moment to the next. To date, this apparent noise has been thought to be due to random natural variations or measurement error. However, researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Human Development have shown that this neural variability may provide a unique window into brain function. In a new Perspective article out now in the journal
Neuron, the authors argue that researchers need to focus more on neural variability to fully understand how behavior emerges from the brain.
When neuroscientists investigate the brain, its activity seems to vary all the time. Sometimes activity is higher or lower, rhythmic or irregular. Whereas averaging brain activity has served as a standard way of visualizing how the brain works, the irregular, seemingly random patterns in neural signals have often been disregarded. Strikingly, such irregularities in neural activity appear regardless of whether single neurons or entire br