Information processing with population codes

Information is encoded in the brain by populations or clusters of cells, ra ther than by single cells. This encoding strategy is known as population co ding. Here we review the standard use of population codes for encoding and decoding information, and consider how population codes can be used to supp ort neural computations such as noise removal and nonlinear mapping. More r adical ideas about how population codes may directly represent information about stimulus uncertainty are also discussed.