The structured 'low temperature' phase of the retinal population code.
Recent advances in experimental techniques have allowed the simultaneous recordings of populations of hundreds of neurons, fostering a debate about the nature of the collective structure of population neural activity. Much of this debate has focused on the empirical findings of a phase transition in...
| Main Authors: | , |
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
Public Library of Science (PLoS)
2017-10-01
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| Series: | PLoS Computational Biology |
| Online Access: | http://europepmc.org/articles/PMC5654267?pdf=render |
| _version_ | 1819238216560017408 |
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| author | Mark L Ioffe Michael J Berry |
| author_facet | Mark L Ioffe Michael J Berry |
| author_sort | Mark L Ioffe |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | Recent advances in experimental techniques have allowed the simultaneous recordings of populations of hundreds of neurons, fostering a debate about the nature of the collective structure of population neural activity. Much of this debate has focused on the empirical findings of a phase transition in the parameter space of maximum entropy models describing the measured neural probability distributions, interpreting this phase transition to indicate a critical tuning of the neural code. Here, we instead focus on the possibility that this is a first-order phase transition which provides evidence that the real neural population is in a 'structured', collective state. We show that this collective state is robust to changes in stimulus ensemble and adaptive state. We find that the pattern of pairwise correlations between neurons has a strength that is well within the strongly correlated regime and does not require fine tuning, suggesting that this state is generic for populations of 100+ neurons. We find a clear correspondence between the emergence of a phase transition, and the emergence of attractor-like structure in the inferred energy landscape. A collective state in the neural population, in which neural activity patterns naturally form clusters, provides a consistent interpretation for our results. |
| first_indexed | 2024-12-23T13:32:42Z |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj.art-4b8398bb640d4621b7778ce1c0486384 |
| institution | Directory Open Access Journal |
| issn | 1553-734X 1553-7358 |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-12-23T13:32:42Z |
| publishDate | 2017-10-01 |
| publisher | Public Library of Science (PLoS) |
| record_format | Article |
| series | PLoS Computational Biology |
| spelling | doaj.art-4b8398bb640d4621b7778ce1c04863842022-12-21T17:45:06ZengPublic Library of Science (PLoS)PLoS Computational Biology1553-734X1553-73582017-10-011310e100579210.1371/journal.pcbi.1005792The structured 'low temperature' phase of the retinal population code.Mark L IoffeMichael J BerryRecent advances in experimental techniques have allowed the simultaneous recordings of populations of hundreds of neurons, fostering a debate about the nature of the collective structure of population neural activity. Much of this debate has focused on the empirical findings of a phase transition in the parameter space of maximum entropy models describing the measured neural probability distributions, interpreting this phase transition to indicate a critical tuning of the neural code. Here, we instead focus on the possibility that this is a first-order phase transition which provides evidence that the real neural population is in a 'structured', collective state. We show that this collective state is robust to changes in stimulus ensemble and adaptive state. We find that the pattern of pairwise correlations between neurons has a strength that is well within the strongly correlated regime and does not require fine tuning, suggesting that this state is generic for populations of 100+ neurons. We find a clear correspondence between the emergence of a phase transition, and the emergence of attractor-like structure in the inferred energy landscape. A collective state in the neural population, in which neural activity patterns naturally form clusters, provides a consistent interpretation for our results.http://europepmc.org/articles/PMC5654267?pdf=render |
| spellingShingle | Mark L Ioffe Michael J Berry The structured 'low temperature' phase of the retinal population code. PLoS Computational Biology |
| title | The structured 'low temperature' phase of the retinal population code. |
| title_full | The structured 'low temperature' phase of the retinal population code. |
| title_fullStr | The structured 'low temperature' phase of the retinal population code. |
| title_full_unstemmed | The structured 'low temperature' phase of the retinal population code. |
| title_short | The structured 'low temperature' phase of the retinal population code. |
| title_sort | structured low temperature phase of the retinal population code |
| url | http://europepmc.org/articles/PMC5654267?pdf=render |
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