Preference of Sensory Neural Coding for 1/f Signals

We investigated the influences of different types of temporal correlations in the input signal on the functions and coding properties of neurons in the primary visual cortex (V1). We found that the temporal transfer functions of V1 neurons exhibit higher gain, and the spike responses exhibit higher coding efficiency and information transmission rates, for the 1/f (natural long-term correlation) signals than for 1/f0 (no correlation) and 1/f² (stronger long-term correlation) signals. These results suggest that the intermediate long-term correlation ubiquitous to natural signals may play an important role in shaping and optimizing the machinery of neurons in their adaptation to the natural environment.