Flexible integration of natural stimuli by auditory cortical neurons

Sensory neurons compute over their inputs, combining stimuli to achieve selectivity and invariance for pattern recognition. Using real-world stimuli, we show that cortical neurons are flexible, capable of implementing more than one computation. We investigate this flexibility by modeling how synaptic activation patterns of real-world stimuli affect dendritic integration and resultant neuronal computation. Our work bridges the gap between biophysical mechanisms and computation, linking neuronal input integration to pattern recognition.