One challenge in neuroscience, as in other areas of science, is to make inferences about the underlying causal structure from correlational data. Here, we discuss this challenge in the context of choice correlations in sensory neurons, that is, trial-by-trial correlations, unexplained by the stimulus, between the activity of sensory neurons and an animal's perceptual choice. Do these choice-correlations reflect feedforward, feedback signalling, both, or neither? We highlight recent results of correlational and causal examinations of choice and choice-history signals in sensory, and in part sensorimotor, cortex and address formal statistical frameworks to infer causal interactions from data.

中文翻译：

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感觉皮层的选择（历史）相关性：原因还是后果？

与其他科学领域一样，神经科学的挑战之一是从相关数据中推断潜在的因果结构。在这里，我们在感觉神经元的选择相关性的上下文中讨论了这一挑战，即感觉神经元的活动性与动物的感知选择之间的刺激无法解释的逐次试验相关性。这些选择相关是否反映前馈，反馈信号，或者两者都反映？我们重点介绍了感官以及部分感觉运动，皮层的选​​择和选择历史信号的相关性和因果检查的最新结果，并提出了正式的统计框架以从数据中推断因果关系。