Spike triggered covariance analysis of a model neuron with one relevant feature that has a large component along the coherent mode.

<p>Spectra of for increasing dataset size in the case of strongly correlated Gaussian noise (A,B) and white noise (C). (A–C) The range of spikes covered is from to . Panel B shows the results after evaluating significance in the subspace orthogonal to the coherent mode. Each vertical line shows the result of a single simulation. Significant (insignificant) eigenvalues are shown in red (black), and the percentile range of the null distribution (1000 evaluations of ) is shown in gray. (D–F) Gray shaded area is the support of the null distribution, which itself is plotted in blue. The correct feature is found using both stimulus conditions and both the original formulation of the STC method and our proposed correction. , for the correlated stimulus condition in panels D and E, , for the white stimulus condition in panel F (indicated by an orange star in panels A–C). Insets to panels D–F show the recovered feature (decorrelated in panels D,E) and the nested significance testing which does not affect the results. Black framed inset to panel D shows the model feature. The models were defined such that the mean firing rate remained unchanged between the two stimulus conditions.