6,894 research outputs found
A Neural Network Model for the Development of Simple and Complex Cell Receptive Fields Within Cortical Maps of Orientation and Ocular Dominance
Prenatal development of the primary visual cortex leads to simple cells with spatially distinct and oriented ON and OFF subregions. These simple cells are organized into spatial maps of orientation and ocular dominance that exhibit singularities, fractures, and linear zones. On a finer spatial scale, simple cells occur that are sensitive to similar orientations but opposite contrast polarities, and exhibit both even-symmetric and odd-symmetric receptive fields. Pooling of outputs from oppositely polarized simple cells leads to complex cells that respond to both contrast polarities. A neural network model is described which simulates how simple and complex cells self-organize starting from unsegregated and unoriented geniculocortical inputs during prenatal development. Neighboring simple cells that are sensitive to opposite contrast polarities develop from a combination of spatially short-range inhibition and high-gain recurrent habituative excitation between cells that obey membrane equations. Habituation, or depression, of synapses controls reset of cell activations both through enhanced ON responses and OFF antagonistic rebounds. Orientation and ocular dominance maps form when high-gain medium-range recurrent excitation and long-range inhibition interact with the short-range mechanisms. The resulting structure clarifies how simple and complex cells contribute to perceptual processes such as texture segregation and perceptual grouping.Air Force Office of Scientific Research (F49620-92-J-0334); British Petroleum (BP 89A-1204); National Science Foundation (IRI-90-24877); Office of Naval Research (N00014-91-J-4100); Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency and the Office of Naval Research (N00014-95-1-0409
Learning and comparing functional connectomes across subjects
Functional connectomes capture brain interactions via synchronized
fluctuations in the functional magnetic resonance imaging signal. If measured
during rest, they map the intrinsic functional architecture of the brain. With
task-driven experiments they represent integration mechanisms between
specialized brain areas. Analyzing their variability across subjects and
conditions can reveal markers of brain pathologies and mechanisms underlying
cognition. Methods of estimating functional connectomes from the imaging signal
have undergone rapid developments and the literature is full of diverse
strategies for comparing them. This review aims to clarify links across
functional-connectivity methods as well as to expose different steps to perform
a group study of functional connectomes
Winner-relaxing and winner-enhancing Kohonen maps: Maximal mutual information from enhancing the winner
The magnification behaviour of a generalized family of self-organizing
feature maps, the Winner Relaxing and Winner Enhancing Kohonen algorithms is
analyzed by the magnification law in the one-dimensional case, which can be
obtained analytically. The Winner-Enhancing case allows to acheive a
magnification exponent of one and therefore provides optimal mapping in the
sense of information theory. A numerical verification of the magnification law
is included, and the ordering behaviour is analyzed. Compared to the original
Self-Organizing Map and some other approaches, the generalized Winner Enforcing
Algorithm requires minimal extra computations per learning step and is
conveniently easy to implement.Comment: 6 pages, 5 figures. For an extended version refer to cond-mat/0208414
(Neural Computation 17, 996-1009
Dynamic Decomposition of Spatiotemporal Neural Signals
Neural signals are characterized by rich temporal and spatiotemporal dynamics
that reflect the organization of cortical networks. Theoretical research has
shown how neural networks can operate at different dynamic ranges that
correspond to specific types of information processing. Here we present a data
analysis framework that uses a linearized model of these dynamic states in
order to decompose the measured neural signal into a series of components that
capture both rhythmic and non-rhythmic neural activity. The method is based on
stochastic differential equations and Gaussian process regression. Through
computer simulations and analysis of magnetoencephalographic data, we
demonstrate the efficacy of the method in identifying meaningful modulations of
oscillatory signals corrupted by structured temporal and spatiotemporal noise.
These results suggest that the method is particularly suitable for the analysis
and interpretation of complex temporal and spatiotemporal neural signals
Colour Constancy: Biologically-inspired Contrast Variant Pooling Mechanism
Pooling is a ubiquitous operation in image processing algorithms that allows
for higher-level processes to collect relevant low-level features from a region
of interest. Currently, max-pooling is one of the most commonly used operators
in the computational literature. However, it can lack robustness to outliers
due to the fact that it relies merely on the peak of a function. Pooling
mechanisms are also present in the primate visual cortex where neurons of
higher cortical areas pool signals from lower ones. The receptive fields of
these neurons have been shown to vary according to the contrast by aggregating
signals over a larger region in the presence of low contrast stimuli. We
hypothesise that this contrast-variant-pooling mechanism can address some of
the shortcomings of max-pooling. We modelled this contrast variation through a
histogram clipping in which the percentage of pooled signal is inversely
proportional to the local contrast of an image. We tested our hypothesis by
applying it to the phenomenon of colour constancy where a number of popular
algorithms utilise a max-pooling step (e.g. White-Patch, Grey-Edge and
Double-Opponency). For each of these methods, we investigated the consequences
of replacing their original max-pooling by the proposed
contrast-variant-pooling. Our experiments on three colour constancy benchmark
datasets suggest that previous results can significantly improve by adopting a
contrast-variant-pooling mechanism
Cortical Dynamics of Navigation and Steering in Natural Scenes: Motion-Based Object Segmentation, Heading, and Obstacle Avoidance
Visually guided navigation through a cluttered natural scene is a challenging problem that animals and humans accomplish with ease. The ViSTARS neural model proposes how primates use motion information to segment objects and determine heading for purposes of goal approach and obstacle avoidance in response to video inputs from real and virtual environments. The model produces trajectories similar to those of human navigators. It does so by predicting how computationally complementary processes in cortical areas MT-/MSTv and MT+/MSTd compute object motion for tracking and self-motion for navigation, respectively. The model retina responds to transients in the input stream. Model V1 generates a local speed and direction estimate. This local motion estimate is ambiguous due to the neural aperture problem. Model MT+ interacts with MSTd via an attentive feedback loop to compute accurate heading estimates in MSTd that quantitatively simulate properties of human heading estimation data. Model MT interacts with MSTv via an attentive feedback loop to compute accurate estimates of speed, direction and position of moving objects. This object information is combined with heading information to produce steering decisions wherein goals behave like attractors and obstacles behave like repellers. These steering decisions lead to navigational trajectories that closely match human performance.National Science Foundation (SBE-0354378, BCS-0235398); Office of Naval Research (N00014-01-1-0624); National Geospatial Intelligence Agency (NMA201-01-1-2016
Meta-analysis of functional neuroimaging data using Bayesian nonparametric binary regression
In this work we perform a meta-analysis of neuroimaging data, consisting of
locations of peak activations identified in 162 separate studies on emotion.
Neuroimaging meta-analyses are typically performed using kernel-based methods.
However, these methods require the width of the kernel to be set a priori and
to be constant across the brain. To address these issues, we propose a fully
Bayesian nonparametric binary regression method to perform neuroimaging
meta-analyses. In our method, each location (or voxel) has a probability of
being a peak activation, and the corresponding probability function is based on
a spatially adaptive Gaussian Markov random field (GMRF). We also include
parameters in the model to robustify the procedure against miscoding of the
voxel response. Posterior inference is implemented using efficient MCMC
algorithms extended from those introduced in Holmes and Held [Bayesian Anal. 1
(2006) 145--168]. Our method allows the probability function to be locally
adaptive with respect to the covariates, that is, to be smooth in one region of
the covariate space and wiggly or even discontinuous in another. Posterior
miscoding probabilities for each of the identified voxels can also be obtained,
identifying voxels that may have been falsely classified as being activated.
Simulation studies and application to the emotion neuroimaging data indicate
that our method is superior to standard kernel-based methods.Comment: Published in at http://dx.doi.org/10.1214/11-AOAS523 the Annals of
Applied Statistics (http://www.imstat.org/aoas/) by the Institute of
Mathematical Statistics (http://www.imstat.org
Neural Connectivity with Hidden Gaussian Graphical State-Model
The noninvasive procedures for neural connectivity are under questioning.
Theoretical models sustain that the electromagnetic field registered at
external sensors is elicited by currents at neural space. Nevertheless, what we
observe at the sensor space is a superposition of projected fields, from the
whole gray-matter. This is the reason for a major pitfall of noninvasive
Electrophysiology methods: distorted reconstruction of neural activity and its
connectivity or leakage. It has been proven that current methods produce
incorrect connectomes. Somewhat related to the incorrect connectivity
modelling, they disregard either Systems Theory and Bayesian Information
Theory. We introduce a new formalism that attains for it, Hidden Gaussian
Graphical State-Model (HIGGS). A neural Gaussian Graphical Model (GGM) hidden
by the observation equation of Magneto-encephalographic (MEEG) signals. HIGGS
is equivalent to a frequency domain Linear State Space Model (LSSM) but with
sparse connectivity prior. The mathematical contribution here is the theory for
high-dimensional and frequency-domain HIGGS solvers. We demonstrate that HIGGS
can attenuate the leakage effect in the most critical case: the distortion EEG
signal due to head volume conduction heterogeneities. Its application in EEG is
illustrated with retrieved connectivity patterns from human Steady State Visual
Evoked Potentials (SSVEP). We provide for the first time confirmatory evidence
for noninvasive procedures of neural connectivity: concurrent EEG and
Electrocorticography (ECoG) recordings on monkey. Open source packages are
freely available online, to reproduce the results presented in this paper and
to analyze external MEEG databases
Winner-Relaxing Self-Organizing Maps
A new family of self-organizing maps, the Winner-Relaxing Kohonen Algorithm,
is introduced as a generalization of a variant given by Kohonen in 1991. The
magnification behaviour is calculated analytically. For the original variant a
magnification exponent of 4/7 is derived; the generalized version allows to
steer the magnification in the wide range from exponent 1/2 to 1 in the
one-dimensional case, thus provides optimal mapping in the sense of information
theory. The Winner Relaxing Algorithm requires minimal extra computations per
learning step and is conveniently easy to implement.Comment: 14 pages (6 figs included). To appear in Neural Computatio
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