Population vector explained

In neuroscience, a population vector is the sum of the preferred directions of a population of neurons, weighted by the respective spike counts.

The formula for computing the (normalized) population vector,

F , takes the following form:F = (\sum _{j} m _{j} F _{j})/(\sum _{j} m _{j})

Where

m _{j} is the activity of cell j , and F _{j} is the preferred input for cell j .

Note that the vector

F encodes the input direction, F _{j} , in terms of the activation of a population of neurons.