Identification of MGB cells by Volterra kernels. I. Prediction of responses to species specific vocalizations.

The function of CNS sites is frequently explored by an analysis of its input-output relationships. However, such research are often confined to a qualitative and subjective inspection of raw data. System Identification methods can be used to formalize the stimulus--response relations, and one of them, the Volterra approach, is employed here in order to define these relations in the MGB of the squirrel monkey, natural vocalizations being the stimuli. In order to validate the formal representation of the system under study, the predictability power of the model is tested. Having the distances between responses (PSTH) and predicted response quantified, it is found that the predictions made by the model are, in general, "closer" to the actual responses then some arbitrarily chosen responses. It is concluded that there are cells in the MGB that can be characterized by their Volterra kernels, and further research on the cell's functional role can be based on these kernels.