Clock time: a foreign measure to brain dynamics
First published: 2021
Brief summary
Preprint arguing that neural activity can be understood by aligning data to oscillatory brain time rather than external clock time.
Article
The authors argue that neural data are usually measured against external clock time even though brain activity is organised by internally generated oscillations whose rates and phases vary. They propose that milliseconds may therefore be an unsuitable reference frame for comparing neural events that unfold relative to ongoing brain rhythms.
The paper introduces brain time warping, a transformation that expresses time in cycles of a selected neural oscillation rather than in fixed clock-time units. The method estimates the instantaneous phase of the oscillation and remaps observations so that corresponding phases are aligned across trials or recording periods.
Tests with simulated data indicate that patterns obscured when trials are averaged in milliseconds can become clearer after alignment to oscillatory phase. The authors also apply the approach to electrophysiological recordings and examine whether phase-based timing improves the detection of structured neural dynamics.
The proposed method is intended for situations in which the relevant neural process is coupled to an oscillatory rhythm whose timing varies from trial to trial. Its usefulness depends on identifying an appropriate clocking oscillation and on distinguishing meaningful phase variability from noise or unrelated activity.
Source details and credits
- Source / publisher: bioRxiv
- Source type: Preprint
- URL type: PDF
- Credits: bioRxiv
- URL: