noise in attractor networks in the brain produced by graded firing rate representations噪声在吸引子网络在大脑中产生的分级燃烧率表示.pdfVIP

Noise in Attractor Networks in the Brain Produced by Graded Firing Rate Representations 1 2,3 4 1 Tristan J. Webb , Edmund T. Rolls *, Gustavo Deco , Jianfeng Feng 1 Department of Computer Science and Complexity Science Centre, University of Warwick, Coventry, United Kingdom, 2 Oxford Centre for Computational Neuroscience, Oxford, United Kingdom, 3 Department of Computer Science, University of Warwick, Coventry, United Kingdom, 4 Theoretical and Computational Neuroscience, Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona, Spain Abstract Representations in the cortex are often distributed with graded firing rates in the neuronal populations. The firing rate probability distribution of each neuron to a set of stimuli is often exponential or gamma. In processes in the brain, such as decision-making, that are influenced by the noise produced by the close to random spike timings of each neuron for a given mean rate, the noise with this graded type of representation may be larger than with the binary firing rate distribution that is usually investigated. In integrate-and-fire simulations of an attractor decision-making network, we show that the noise is indeed greater for a given sparseness of the representation for graded, exponential, than for binary firing rate distributions. The greater noise was measured by faster escaping times from the spontaneous firing rate state when the decision cues are applied, and this corresponds to faster decision or reaction times. The greater noise was also evident as less stability of the spontaneous firing state before the decision cues are applied. The implication is that spiking-related noise will continue to be a factor that influences processes such as decision-making, signal detection, short-term memory,