The Importance of Single-Trial Analyses in Cognitive Neuroscience.
Stokes M., Spaak E.
Theories of working memory typically assume that information is maintained via persistent neural activity. By contrast, Lundqvist et al. report that single-trial delay activity is actually 'bursty'; the classic profile of persistent activity is an artefact of trial-wise averaging. Tackling brain-behaviour relationships at the single-trial level is an important future direction for cognitive neuroscience.