Related papers: A minimal model for synaptic integration in simple…
A neuron is a basic physiological and computational unit of the brain. While much is known about the physiological properties of a neuron, its computational role is poorly understood. Here we propose to view a neuron as a signal processing…
The advent of large scale neural computational platforms has highlighted the lack of algorithms for synthesis of neural structures to perform predefined cognitive tasks. The Neural Engineering Framework offers one such synthesis, but it is…
We study the characteristics of weak signal detection by a recurrent neuronal network with plastic synaptic coupling. It is shown that in the presence of an asynchronous component in synaptic transmission, the network acquires selectivity…
Many systems are modulated by unknown slow processes. This hinders analysis in highly non-linear systems, such as excitable systems. We show that for such systems, if the input matches the sparse `spiky' nature of the output, the spiking…
Synaptic plasticity depends on the interaction between electrical activity in neurons and the synaptic proteome, the collection of over 1000 proteins in the post-synaptic density (PSD) of synapses. To construct models of synaptic plasticity…
Neurons and networks in the cerebral cortex must operate reliably despite multiple sources of noise. To evaluate the impact of both input and output noise, we determine the robustness of single-neuron stimulus selective responses, as well…
The neural coding is yet to be discovered. The neuronal operational modes that arise with fixed inputs but with varying degrees of stimulation help to elucidate their coding properties. In neurons receiving {\it in vivo} stimulation, we…
How do neural network image classifiers respond to simpler and simpler inputs? And what do such responses reveal about the learning process? To answer these questions, we need a clear measure of input simplicity (or inversely, complexity),…
At functional scales, cortical behavior results from the complex interplay of a large number of excitable cells operating in noisy environments. Such systems resist to mathematical analysis, and computational neurosciences have largely…
Competition between synapses arises in some forms of correlation-based plasticity. Here we propose a game theory-inspired model of synaptic interactions whose dynamics is driven by competition between synapses in their weak and strong…
Human brain contains about 10 billion neurons, each of which has about 10~10,000 nerve endings from which neurotransmitters are released in response to incoming spikes, and the released neurotransmitters then bind to receptors located in…
How neurons process their inputs crucially determines the dynamics of biological and artificial neural networks. In such neural and neural-like systems, synaptic input is typically considered to be merely transmitted linearly or sublinearly…
The relationship between a neuron's complex inputs and its spiking output defines the neuron's coding strategy. This is frequently and effectively modeled phenomenologically by one or more linear filters that extract the components of the…
Learning is based on synaptic plasticity, which affects and is driven by neural activity. Because pre- and postsynaptic spiking activity is shaped by randomness, the synaptic weights follow a stochastic process, requiring a probabilistic…
Kinetics of a balanced network of neurons with a sparse grid of synaptic links is well representable by the stochastic dynamics of a generic neuron subject to an effective shot noise. The rate of delta-pulses of the noise is determined…
In this paper we address the question of statistical model selection for a class of stochastic models of biological neural nets. Models in this class are systems of interacting chains with memory of variable length. Each chain describes the…
Neocortical neurons have thousands of excitatory synapses. It is a mystery how neurons integrate the input from so many synapses and what kind of large-scale network behavior this enables. It has been previously proposed that non-linear…
This paper introduces a class of stochastic models of interacting neurons with emergent dynamics similar to those seen in local cortical populations, and compares them to very simple reduced models driven by the same mean excitatory and…
Using a realistic model of activity dependent dynamical synapses and a standard integrate and fire neuron model we study, both analytically and numerically, the conditions in which a postsynaptic neuron efficiently detects temporal…
Spikes are the currency in central nervous systems for information transmission and processing. They are also believed to play an essential role in low-power consumption of the biological systems, whose efficiency attracts increasing…