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We believe that this type of relative precision may be a general feature of sensory neuron communication, says Stanley. You can think of it like digital sampling used for audio recordings. The brain digitizes the visual stimulus. As with digital audio recordings, for clear and representational playback, the encoding frequencies must be at least double that of the signal information.

In future research, the researchers plan to further clarify why and how the brain encodes visual information across larger networks of cells and across functional units of the brain. They also will investigate how the visual pathway of the brain adapts to changes in the visual scene. They believe cracking the neural code will help other scientists and engineers better communicate with the brain. Understanding the speed at which the brain encodes information is critical for designing interfaces such as neural prosthetics, that seek to augment or replace brain function lost to trauma or disease.

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