×

Comments on ”Is partial coherence a viable technique for identifying generators of neural oscillations?”. (English) Zbl 1172.92312

Summary: To aid prospective neural connectivity inference analysts and hoping to preclude misconception spread, we exploit the didatic value of some of the issues raised by Z. Albo et al. [ibid. 90, No. 5, 318–326 (2004; Zbl 1057.92014)], who claim that signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) values can lead to mistakes in structural inference when using partial coherence in connection to Gersch’s method for spotting signal sources [Math. Biosci. 14, 177-196 (1972)]. We show theoretically that Gersch’s method is able only to spot which measurement of some common underlying factor has the least amount of additive noise and that this has nothing to do with any reasonable notion of ”causality” as suggested by Albo et al. (op. cit.). We also show that despite the inherent structural ambiguity of the model used by Albo et al. to back their claim, its data can nonetheless furnish the correct time precedence hierarchy between the activities in its measured structures, both when simple (correlation) and more sophisticated methods are used (partial directed coherence) [L.A. Baccala and K. Sameshima, Biol. Cybern. 84, No. 6, 463–474 (2001; Zbl 1160.92306)] in a true depiction of time series causality.

MSC:

92C20 Neural biology
PDFBibTeX XMLCite
Full Text: DOI

References:

[1] Albo Z, Di Prisco GV, Chen YH, Rangarajan G, Truccolo W, Feng JF, Vertes RP, Ding MZ (2004) Is partial coherence a viable technique for identifying generators of neural oscillations. Biol Cybern 90:318–326 · Zbl 1057.92014 · doi:10.1007/s00422-004-0475-5
[2] Baccala LA, Sameshima K (2001a) Partial directed coherence: a new concept in neural structure determination. Biol Cybern 84:463–474 · Zbl 1160.92306 · doi:10.1007/PL00007990
[3] Baccala LA, Sameshima K (2001b) Overcoming the limitations of correlation analysis for many simultaneously processed neural structures. Prog Brain Res 130:33–47 · doi:10.1016/S0079-6123(01)30004-3
[4] Baccala LA, Sameshima K, Ballester G, Valle AC, Timo-Iaria C (1998) Studying the interaction between brain structures via directed coherence and Granger causality. Appl Signal Process 5:40–48 · doi:10.1007/s005290050005
[5] Bendat JS, Piersol AG (1993) Engineering applications of correlation and spectral analysis, 2nd edn. Wiley, New York · Zbl 0824.62092
[6] Brockwell PJ, Davis RA (1991) Time series: theory and methods, 2nd edn. Springer, Berlin Heidelberg New York
[7] Gersch W (1972) Causality or driving electrophysiological signal analysis. Math Biosci 14:177–196 · doi:10.1016/0025-5564(72)90017-X
[8] Gersch W, Goddard GV (1970) Epileptic focus location–spectral analysis method. Science 169:701–702 · doi:10.1126/science.169.3946.701
[9] Granger CWJ (1969) Investigating causal relations by econometric models and cross-spectral methods. Econometrica 37:424–438 · Zbl 1366.91115 · doi:10.2307/1912791
[10] Haykin SS (1989) Modern filters. Macmillan, New York
[11] Kaminski MJ, Blinowska KJ (1991) A new method of the description of the information flow in the brain structures. Biol Cybern 65:203-210 · Zbl 0734.92003 · doi:10.1007/BF00198091
[12] Lütkepohl H (1993). Introduction to multiple time series analysis, 2nd edn. Springer, Berlin Heidelberg New York · Zbl 0835.62075
[13] Saito Y, Harashima H (1981). Tracking of information within multichannel EEG record–causal analysis in EEG. In: Yamaguchi N, Fujisawa K (eds). Recent advances in EEG and EMG data processing. Elsevier, Amsterdam, pp. 133–146
[14] Schnider SM, Kwong RH, Lenz FA, Kwan HC (1989) Detection of feedback in the central nervous system using system identification techniques. Biol Cybern 60:203-212 · Zbl 0667.92004 · doi:10.1007/BF00207288
This reference list is based on information provided by the publisher or from digital mathematics libraries. Its items are heuristically matched to zbMATH identifiers and may contain data conversion errors. In some cases that data have been complemented/enhanced by data from zbMATH Open. This attempts to reflect the references listed in the original paper as accurately as possible without claiming completeness or a perfect matching.