Abstract

Introduction Studies of population coding, which explore how the activity of ensembles of neurons represent the external world, normally focus on the accuracy and reliability with which sensory information is represented. However, the encoding strategies used by neural circuits have undoubtedly been shaped by the way the encoded information is used. The point of encoding sensory information is, after all, to generate and guide behavior. The ease and efficiency with which sensory information can be processed to generate motor responses must be an important factor in determining the nature of a neuronal population code. In other words, to understand how populations of neurons encode we cannot overlook how they compute. Gain modulation, which is seen in many cortical areas, is a change in the response amplitude of a neuron that is not accompanied by a modification of response selectivity. Just as population coding is a ubiquitous form of information representation, gain modulati

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