Dataset Information

Spike timing and information transmission at retinogeniculate synapses.

ABSTRACT: This study examines the rules governing the transfer of spikes between the retina and the lateral geniculate nucleus (LGN) with the goal of determining whether the most informative retinal spikes preferentially drive LGN responses and what role spike timing plays in the process. By recording from monosynaptically connected pairs of retinal ganglion cells and LGN neurons in vivo in the cat, we show that relayed spikes are more likely than nonrelayed spikes to be evoked by stimuli that match the receptive fields of the recorded cells and that an interspike interval-based mechanism contributes to the process. Relayed spikes are also more reliable in their timing and number where they often achieve the theoretical limit of minimum variance. As a result, relayed spikes carry more visual information per spike. Based on these results, we conclude that retinogeniculate processing increases sparseness in the neural code by selectively relaying the highest fidelity spikes to the visual cortex.

SUBMITTER: Rathbun DL

PROVIDER: S-EPMC2970570 | biostudies-literature | 2010 Oct

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Publications

Spike timing and information transmission at retinogeniculate synapses.

Rathbun Daniel L DL Warland David K DK Usrey W Martin WM

The Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience 20101001 41

This study examines the rules governing the transfer of spikes between the retina and the lateral geniculate nucleus (LGN) with the goal of determining whether the most informative retinal spikes preferentially drive LGN responses and what role spike timing plays in the process. By recording from monosynaptically connected pairs of retinal ganglion cells and LGN neurons in vivo in the cat, we show that relayed spikes are more likely than nonrelayed spikes to be evoked by stimuli that match the r ...[more]

PMID: 20943897

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Project description:Rhythmic activity has been associated with a wide range of cognitive processes including the encoding of sensory information, navigation, the transfer of information and others. Rhythmic activity in the brain has also been suggested to be used for multiplexing information. Multiplexing is the ability to transmit more than one signal via the same channel. Here we focus on frequency division multiplexing, in which different signals are transmitted in different frequency bands. Recent work showed that spike-timing-dependent plasticity (STDP) can facilitate the transfer of rhythmic activity downstream the information processing pathway. However, STDP has also been known to generate strong winner-take-all like competition between subgroups of correlated synaptic inputs. This competition between different rhythmicity channels, induced by STDP, may prevent the multiplexing of information. Thus, raising doubts whether STDP is consistent with the idea of multiplexing. This study explores whether STDP can facilitate the multiplexing of information across multiple frequency channels, and if so, under what conditions. We address this question in a modelling study, investigating the STDP dynamics of two populations synapsing downstream onto the same neuron in a feed-forward manner. Each population was assumed to exhibit rhythmic activity, albeit in a different frequency band. Our theory reveals that the winner-take-all like competitions between the two populations is limited, in the sense that different rhythmic populations will not necessarily fully suppress each other. Furthermore, we found that for a wide range of parameters, the network converged to a solution in which the downstream neuron responded to both rhythms. Yet, the synaptic weights themselves did not converge to a fixed point, rather remained dynamic. These findings imply that STDP can support the multiplexing of rhythmic information, and demonstrate how functionality (multiplexing of information) can be retained in the face of continuous remodeling of all the synaptic weights. The constraints on the types of STDP rules that can support multiplexing provide a natural test for our theory.

Project description:Ion-conducting memristors comprised of the layered materials Ge2Se3/SnSe/Ag are promising candidates for neuromorphic computing applications. Here, the spike-timing dependent plasticity (STDP) application is demonstrated for the first time with a single memristor type operating as a synapse over a timescale of 10 orders of magnitude, from nanoseconds through seconds. This large dynamic range allows the memristors to be useful in applications that require slow biological times, as well as fast times such as needed in neuromorphic computing, thus allowing multiple functions in one design for one memristor type-a "one size fits all" approach. This work also investigated the effects of varying the spike pulse shapes on the STDP response of the memristors. These results showed that small changes in the pre- and postsynaptic pulse shape can have a significant impact on the STDP. These results may provide circuit designers with insights into how pulse shape affects the actual memristor STDP response and aid them in the design of neuromorphic circuits and systems that can take advantage of certain features in the memristor STDP response that are programmable via the pre- and postsynaptic pulse shapes. In addition, the energy requirement per memristor is approximated based on the pulse shape and timing responses. The energy requirement estimated per memristor operating on slower biological timescales (milliseconds to seconds) is larger (nanojoules range), as expected, than the faster (nanoseconds) operating times (~0.1 pJ in some cases). Lastly, the memristors responded in a similar manner under normal STDP conditions (pre- and post-spikes applied to opposite memristor terminals) as they did to the case where a waveform corresponding to the difference between pre- and post-spikes was applied to only one electrode, with the other electrode held at ground potential. By applying the difference signal to only one terminal, testing of the memristor in various applications can be achieved with a simplified test set-up, and thus be easier to accomplish in most laboratories.

Dataset Information

Spike timing and information transmission at retinogeniculate synapses.

Publications

Spike timing and information transmission at retinogeniculate synapses.

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