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Natural moment-to-moment signal variability and stochastic facilitation

Nature Reviews Neuroscience volume 12, page 612 (2011)Cite this article

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We have recently provided an Opinion article (The benefits of noise in neural systems: bridging theory and experiment. Nat. Rev. Neurosci. 12, 415–426 (2011))1 that highlights the benefits of stochastic resonance to information processing.

We thank Garrett, McIntosh and Grady for their very interesting correspondence (Natural moment-to-moment signal variability in the human brain can inform models of stochastic facilitation. Nature Rev. Neurosci. 7 Sept 2011 (doi:10.1038/nrn3061-c1))2, which allows us to explore some additional ideas about stochastic facilitation. They point out that recent research has found correlations between higher variability of signals and relatively enhanced function in a variety of tasks2. They comment that this work may inform future models of stochastic facilitation. Although we find this to be an intriguing possibility, we emphasize that such correlations do not, in isolation, provide strong evidence for stochastic facilitation. Higher variability could also be a consequence of the increased signal content that is necessary for enhanced function or an increased ability of the brain to explore its own state space (that is, the entire set of states that a dynamical system can enter, defined by the ranges of values that its defining variables can assume), as argued by Garrett et al3. Although state-space exploration can be facilitated by stochastic noise4, and indeed other work by one of the commenting authors has shown this in brain network simulations5, it can also be facilitated by other mechanisms6. Indeed, the state space of the maturing brain is likely to increase during development and then decline during ageing, so that the increased variability might be seen as simply the consequence of an ability to completely exploit the existing state space.

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References

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Mark D. McDonnell is at the Institute for Telecommunications Research, University of South Australia, Mawson Lakes Boulevard, Mawson Lakes, South Australia 5095, Australia.,

    Mark D. McDonnell

  2. Lawrence M. Ward is at the Department of Psychology, and Brain Research Centre, University of British Columbia, 2136 West Mall, Vancouver, British Columbia V6T 1Z4, Canada.,

    Lawrence M. Ward

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  1. Mark D. McDonnell
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Correspondence to Mark D. McDonnell.

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McDonnell, M., Ward, L. Natural moment-to-moment signal variability and stochastic facilitation. Nat Rev Neurosci 12, 612 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1038/nrn3061-c2

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