A central principle in neuroscience is that neurons within the brain act in concert to produce perception, cognition, and adaptive behavior. Neurons are organized into specialized brain areas, dedicated to different functions to varying extents, and their function relies on distributed circuits to continuously encode relevant environmental and body-state features, enabling other areas to decode (interpret) these representations for computing meaningful decisions and executing precise movements. Thus, the distributed brain can be thought of as a series of computations that act to encode and decode information. In this perspective, we detail important concepts of neural encoding and decoding and highlight the mathematical tools used to measure them, including deep learning methods. We provide case studies where decoding concepts enable foundational and translational science in motor, visual, and language processing.

中文翻译：

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解码大脑：从神经表征到机制模型


神经科学的一个中心原则是大脑内的神经元协同作用以产生感知、认知和适应性行为。神经元被组织成专门的大脑区域，在不同程度上致力于不同的功能，它们的功能依赖于分布式电路不断编码相关的环境和身体状态特征，使其他区域能够解码（解释）这些表征，以计算有意义的决策和执行精确的动作。因此，分布式大脑可以被认为是一系列用于编码和解码信息的计算。在这个角度中，我们详细介绍了神经编码和解码的重要概念，并重点介绍了用于测量它们的数学工具，包括深度学习方法。我们提供案例研究，其中解码概念使运动、视觉和语言处理的基础和转化科学成为可能。