dorsal/arxiv
View SchemaSynaptic Transmission: An Information-Theoretic Perspective
| Authors | A. Manwani, C. Koch |
|---|---|
| Categories | |
| ArXiv ID | q-bio/0309030 |
| URL | https://arxiv.org/abs/q-bio/0309030 |
| Journal | Advances in Neural Information Processing Systems 10, Michael I. Jordan, Michael J. Kearns and Sara Solla (eds.), 1997 |
Abstract
Here we analyze synaptic transmission from an information-theoretic perspective. We derive closed-form expressions for the lower-bounds on the capacity of a simple model of a cortical synapse under two explicit coding paradigms. Under the ``signal estimation'' paradigm, we assume the signal to be encoded in the mean firing rate of a Poisson neuron. The performance of an optimal linear estimator of the signal then provides a lower bound on the capacity for signal estimation. Under the ``signal detection'' paradigm, the presence or absence of the signal has to be detected. Performance of the optimal spike detector allows us to compute a lower bound on the capacity for signal detection. We find that single synapses (for empirically measured parameter values) transmit information poorly but significant improvement can be achieved with a small amount of redundancy.
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"abstract": "Here we analyze synaptic transmission from an information-theoretic\nperspective. We derive closed-form expressions for the lower-bounds on the\ncapacity of a simple model of a cortical synapse under two explicit coding\nparadigms. Under the ``signal estimation\u0027\u0027 paradigm, we assume the signal to be\nencoded in the mean firing rate of a Poisson neuron. The performance of an\noptimal linear estimator of the signal then provides a lower bound on the\ncapacity for signal estimation. Under the ``signal detection\u0027\u0027 paradigm, the\npresence or absence of the signal has to be detected. Performance of the\noptimal spike detector allows us to compute a lower bound on the capacity for\nsignal detection. We find that single synapses (for empirically measured\nparameter values) transmit information poorly but significant improvement can\nbe achieved with a small amount of redundancy.",
"arxiv_id": "q-bio/0309030",
"authors": [
"A. Manwani",
"C. Koch"
],
"categories": [
"q-bio.NC"
],
"journal_ref": "Advances in Neural Information Processing Systems 10, Michael I.\n Jordan, Michael J. Kearns and Sara Solla (eds.), 1997",
"title": "Synaptic Transmission: An Information-Theoretic Perspective",
"url": "https://arxiv.org/abs/q-bio/0309030"
},
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