representation of time-varying stimuli by a network exhibiting oscillations on a faster time scale表示网络的时变刺激表现出振荡在更短的时间内.pdfVIP

Representation of Time-Varying Stimuli by a Network Exhibiting Oscillations on a Faster Time Scale 1,2 1 1 1 Maoz Shamir *, Oded Ghitza , Steven Epstein , Nancy Kopell 1 Center for BioDynamics, Boston University, Boston, Massachusetts, United States of America, 2 Department of Physiology, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Be’er- Sheva, Israel Abstract Sensory processing is associated with gamma frequency oscillations (30–80 Hz) in sensory cortices. This raises the question whether gamma oscillations can be directly involved in the representation of time-varying stimuli, including stimuli whose time scale is longer than a gamma cycle. We are interested in the ability of the system to reliably distinguish different stimuli while being robust to stimulus variations such as uniform time-warp. We address this issue with a dynamical model of spiking neurons and study the response to an asymmetric sawtooth input current over a range of shape parameters. These parameters describe how fast the input current rises and falls in time. Our network consists of inhibitory and excitatory populations that are sufficient for generating oscillations in the gamma range. The oscillations period is about one-third of the stimulus duration. Embedded in this network is a subpopulation of excitatory cells that respond to the sawtooth stimulus and a subpopulation of cells that respond to an onset cue. The intrinsic gamma oscillations generate a temporally sparse code for the external stimuli. In this code, an excitatory cell may fire a single spike during a gamma cycle, depending on its tuning properties and on the temporal structure of the specific input; the identity of the stimulus is coded by the list of excitatory cells that fire during each cycle. We quanti