Probing neural circuitry and function with electrical microstimulation

Abstract

Since the discovery of the nervous system's electrical excitability more than 200 years ago, neuroscientists have used electrical stimulation to manipulate brain activity in order to study its function. Microstimulation has been a valuable technique for probing neural circuitry and identifying networks of neurons that underlie perception, movement and cognition. In this review, we focus on the use of stimulation in behaving primates, an experimental system that permits causal inferences to be made about the effect of stimulation-induced activity on the resulting behaviour or neural signals elsewhere in the brain.