Biological neural networks are large systems of complex elements interacting through a complex array of connections.
How do we describe and interpret the activity of a large
population of neurons and how do we model neural circuits when:
o individual neurons are such complex elements and
o our knowledge of the synaptic connections is so incomplete?
A review paper by L.F. Abbott
Center for Complex Systems
Brandeis University
Waltham, MA 02254
Published in Quart. Rev. Biophys. 27:291-331 (1994)
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Information theory quantifies how much information a neural response carries about the stimulus. This can be compared to the information transferred in particular models of the stimulus-response function and to maximum possible information transfer. Such comparisons are crucial because they validate assumptions present in any neurophysiological analysis.
The authors review information-theory basics before demonstrating its use in neural coding, validating simple stimulus-response models of neural coding of dynamic stimuli.
By Alexander Borst & Frederic E. Theunissen
Nature Neuroscience 2, 947 – 957 (1999)
doi:10.1038/14731
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The development of organic computers, which use mammalian neurons to process or store information or neurological prosthetics for overcoming disorders of the central nervous system, might sound like the background plot for Terminator 4.
However, breakthroughs achieved within the NACHIP project, funded under the Sixth Framework Programme (FP6) and developed by researchers in Germany, Italy and Switzerland, could contribute to the development of precisely these kinds of technology.
The project team is made up of Peter Fromherz from the Max-Planck-Institute for Biochemistry in Munich , Stefano Vassanelli from the Department of Membrane and Neurophysics at the University of Padova and Nikolaus Greeff from the University of Zurich’s Institute of Physiology.
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The nervous system represents time-dependent signals in sequences of discrete action potentials or spikes, all spikes are identical so that information is carried only in the spike arrival times.
A scientific paper by Steven P. Strong, Roland Koberle, Rob R. de Ruyter van Steveninck, and William Bialek
-NEC Research Institute, Princeton, New Jersey
-Department of Physics, Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey
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