dorsal/arxiv
View SchemaAn information theoretic approach to the functional classification of neurons
| Authors | Elad Schneidman, William Bialek, Michael J. Berry II |
|---|---|
| Categories | |
| ArXiv ID | physics/0212114 |
| URL | https://arxiv.org/abs/physics/0212114 |
Abstract
A population of neurons typically exhibits a broad diversity of responses to sensory inputs. The intuitive notion of functional classification is that cells can be clustered so that most of the diversity is captured in the identity of the clusters rather than by individuals within clusters. We show how this intuition can be made precise using information theory, without any need to introduce a metric on the space of stimuli or responses. Applied to the retinal ganglion cells of the salamander, this approach recovers classical results, but also provides clear evidence for subclasses beyond those identified previously. Further, we find that each of the ganglion cells is functionally unique, and that even within the same subclass only a few spikes are needed to reliably distinguish between cells.
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"abstract": "A population of neurons typically exhibits a broad diversity of responses to\nsensory inputs. The intuitive notion of functional classification is that cells\ncan be clustered so that most of the diversity is captured in the identity of\nthe clusters rather than by individuals within clusters. We show how this\nintuition can be made precise using information theory, without any need to\nintroduce a metric on the space of stimuli or responses. Applied to the retinal\nganglion cells of the salamander, this approach recovers classical results, but\nalso provides clear evidence for subclasses beyond those identified previously.\nFurther, we find that each of the ganglion cells is functionally unique, and\nthat even within the same subclass only a few spikes are needed to reliably\ndistinguish between cells.",
"arxiv_id": "physics/0212114",
"authors": [
"Elad Schneidman",
"William Bialek",
"Michael J. Berry II"
],
"categories": [
"physics.bio-ph",
"physics.data-an",
"q-bio.NC"
],
"title": "An information theoretic approach to the functional classification of neurons",
"url": "https://arxiv.org/abs/physics/0212114"
},
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