Related papers: On the optimality of grid cells
In this paper we consider the problem of approximating Euclidean distances by the infinite integer grid graph. Although the topology of the graph is fixed, we have control over the edge-weight assignment $w:E\to \mathbb{R}_{\ge 0}$, and…
Animals build Bayesian 3D models of their surroundings, to control their movements. There is strong selection pressure to make these models as precise as possible, given their sense data. A previous paper has described how a precise 3D…
Distances are pervasive in machine learning. They serve as similarity measures, loss functions, and learning targets; it is said that a good distance measure solves a task. When defining distances, the triangle inequality has proven to be a…
Hippocampal neurons track positions of self, others, and gaze direction. However, it is unclear how their respective neural codes differ enough to avoid confusion while allowing for abstraction. We recorded from populations of hippocampal…
Grid cells in the medial entorhinal cortex (MEC) respond when an animal occupies a periodic lattice of "grid fields" in the environment. The grids are organized in modules with spatial periods, or scales, clustered around discrete values…
We advertise the use of tetrahedral grids constructed via the longest edge bisection algorithm for rendering volumetric data with path tracing. The key benefits of such grids is two-fold. First, they provide a highly adaptive…
Our knowledge of the sensory world is encoded by neurons in sequences of discrete, identical pulses termed action potentials or spikes. There is persistent controversy about the extent to which the precise timing of these spikes is relevant…
In the mammalian brain, many neuronal ensembles are involved in representing spatial structure of the environment. In particular, there exist cells that encode the animal's location and cells that encode head direction. A number of studies…
Neurons in the brain are often finely tuned for specific task variables. Moreover, such disentangled representations are highly sought after in machine learning. Here we mathematically prove that simple biological constraints on neurons,…
Sensory systems across all modalities and species exhibit adaptation to continuously changing input statistics. Individual neurons have been shown to modulate their response gains so as to maximize information transmission in different…
Recent advances in neuroscientific experimental techniques have enabled us to simultaneously record the activity of thousands of neurons across multiple brain regions. This has led to a growing need for computational tools capable of…
We develop a phenomenological coarse--graining procedure for activity in a large network of neurons, and apply this to recordings from a population of 1000+ cells in the hippocampus. Distributions of coarse--grained variables seem to…
A detailed environment perception is a crucial component of automated vehicles. However, to deal with the amount of perceived information, we also require segmentation strategies. Based on a grid map environment representation, well-suited…
Over the brief time intervals available for processing retinal output, roughly 50 to 300 msec, the number of extra spikes generated by individual ganglion cells can be quite variable. Here, computer-generated spike trains were used to…
Motile biological cells in tissue often display the phenomenon of durotaxis, i.e. they tend to move towards stiffer parts of substrate tissue. The mechanism for this behavior is not completely understood. We consider simplified models for…
In both neuroscience and artificial intelligence, popular functional frameworks and neural network formulations operate by making use of extrinsic error measurements and global learning algorithms. Through a set of conjectures based on…
The hippocampus supports spatial navigation by encoding cognitive maps through collective place cell activity. We model the place cell population as non-negative spatial embeddings derived from the spectral decomposition of multi-step…
Neurons in the visual cortex respond best to rod-like stimuli of given orientation. While the preferred orientation varies continuously across most of the cortex, there are prominent pinwheel centers around which all orientations a re…
Brain research has been driven by enquiry for principles of brain structure organization and its control mechanisms. The neuronal wiring map of C. elegans, the only complete connectome available till date, presents an incredible opportunity…
The transfer of mechanical signals through cells is a complex phenomenon. To uncover a new mechanotransduction pathway, we study the frequency-dependent transport of mechanical stimuli by single microtubules and small networks in a…