Paper List
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The Effective Reproduction Number in the Kermack-McKendrick model with age of infection and reinfection
This paper addresses the challenge of accurately estimating the time-varying effective reproduction number ℛ(t) in epidemics by incorporating two crit...
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Covering Relations in the Poset of Combinatorial Neural Codes
This work addresses the core challenge of navigating the complex poset structure of neural codes to systematically test the conjecture linking convex ...
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Collective adsorption of pheromones at the water-air interface
This paper addresses the core challenge of understanding how amphiphilic pheromones, previously assumed to be transported in the gas phase, can be sta...
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pHapCompass: Probabilistic Assembly and Uncertainty Quantification of Polyploid Haplotype Phase
This paper addresses the core challenge of accurately assembling polyploid haplotypes from sequencing data, where read assignment ambiguity and an exp...
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Setting up for failure: automatic discovery of the neural mechanisms of cognitive errors
This paper addresses the core challenge of automating the discovery of biologically plausible recurrent neural network (RNN) dynamics that can replica...
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Influence of Object Affordance on Action Language Understanding: Evidence from Dynamic Causal Modeling Analysis
This study addresses the core challenge of moving beyond correlational evidence to establish the *causal direction* and *temporal dynamics* of how obj...
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Revealing stimulus-dependent dynamics through statistical complexity
This paper addresses the core challenge of detecting stimulus-specific patterns in neural population dynamics that remain hidden to traditional variab...
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Exactly Solvable Population Model with Square-Root Growth Noise and Cell-Size Regulation
This paper addresses the fundamental gap in understanding how microscopic growth fluctuations, specifically those with size-dependent (square-root) no...
Formation of Artificial Neural Assemblies by Biologically Plausible Inhibition Mechanisms
Neuroscience Graduate Program, Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil | Department of Computer Science, University of Exeter, UK | Department of Computer Science, University of Sheffield, UK | Physics Department, Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil
30秒速读
IN SHORT: This work addresses the core limitation of the Assembly Calculus model—its fixed-size, biologically implausible k-WTA selection process—by introducing a dynamic, gamma-oscillation-inspired E%-WTA mechanism and feedforward inhibition, enabling more realistic, self-determined assembly formation and superior retrieval.
核心创新
- Methodology Proposes the E%-Winners-Take-All (E%-WTA) selection mechanism, inspired by gamma oscillation dynamics, which allows a variable number of neurons to fire based on input strength, replacing the fixed-k selection of the original model.
- Methodology Integrates a biologically plausible feedforward inhibition mechanism based on the cortical excitatory-inhibitory neuron ratio (e.g., pi=0.2), enhancing network stability and assembly formation.
- Biology Defines a more rigorous, multi-condition criterion for assembly formation (stationary pattern, synchronization, higher synaptic density), moving beyond the original model's simpler 'no new winners' rule.
主要结论
- The E%-WTA model with feedforward inhibition (ωinh = -0.2, β ≤ 0.01) successfully forms neural assemblies where size is dynamically determined by network activity, not preset, addressing a key biological limitation.
- The new model achieves a superior assembly recovery rate (evocation accuracy) compared to the original AC model, demonstrating enhanced functional stability and memory retrieval capability.
- The introduced formation conditions (stationary pattern, synchronization, higher synaptic density) converge reliably in simulations, providing a robust framework for defining and identifying stable neural assemblies.
摘要: As proposed by Hebb’s theory, neural assemblies are groups of excitatory neurons that fire synchronously and exhibit high synaptic density, representing external stimuli and supporting cognitive functions such as language and decision-making. Recently, a model called Assembly Calculus (AC) was proposed, enabling the formation of artificial neural assemblies through the kk-winners-take-all selection process and Hebbian learning. Although the model is capable of forming assemblies according to Hebb’s theory, the adopted selection process does not incorporate essential aspects of biological neural computation, as neural activity, which is often governed by statistical distributions consistent with power-law scaling. Given this limitation, the present work aimed to bring the model’s dynamics closer to that observed in real cortical networks. To achieve this, a new selection mechanism inspired by the dynamics of gamma oscillation cycles, called E%-winners-take-all, was implemented, combined with an inhibition process based on the ratio between excitatory and inhibitory neurons observed in various regions of the cerebral cortex. The results obtained from our model (called E%-WTA model) were compared with those of the original model, and the analyses demonstrated that the introduced modifications allowed the network’s own dynamics to determine the size of the formed assemblies. Furthermore, the recovery rate of these groups, through the evocation of the stimuli that generated them, became superior to that obtained in the original model.