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| Activity-dependent stimulation techniques in Neuroscience have been
implemented through the concept of dynamic clamp in electro-physiological
experiments. The same generic principles underlying the dynamic-clamp
technique can be used to develop novel protocols to study information
processing in the context of electro-communication of weakly electric
fish. Specifically, here we address the use of these protocols in the
elephant fish, Gnathonemus petersii, an animal that uses a weak electric
field to locate obstacles or food while navigating, as well as for
electro-communication with other fishes. To investigate the electrical
coding in this fish, we use an adaptive electrical stimulation as a
function of the animal's electrical activity. To map this electrical
activity to a time series of events, we represent the recorded
electrical signal as a binary string. Then we take data words of
predetermined length to define information events by considering the
correlation between consecutive pulses. From the information analysis,
we chose a representative word to trigger the stimulation delivered in
the close-loop. We compare the electrical activity generated by
Gnathonemus petersii during the closed-loop stimulation protocol versus
a random stimulation. Finally, we discuss how this comparison can serve
to understand the underlying information processing. |
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