Estimation of Concerted Activities Based on Subsequence Distribution Discrepancy Calculation

In the present study, a new measurement of subsequence distribution discrepancy (MSDD) was applied to analyze the concerted activity pattern of a group of spike trains. The changes of concerted pattern in a neuronal population affected by the activity of GABA inhibitory pathway were estimated using this method. Comparison between MSDD and classical cross-correlation analysis showed that the parameter B_k in MSDD can be considered as an index showing the degree of coincidence between the activity of the k-th neuron and that of the rest neurons in the group. These results suggest that the new algorithm MSDD can be applied to investigate the concerted activities of neuronal population efficiently. With the help of this method, physiological conditions determined by the spatio-temporal pattern of the neuronal activities can be compared.