Multi-class oscillating systems of interacting neurons

We consider multi-class systems of interacting nonlinear Hawkes processes modeling several large families of neurons and study their mean field limits. As the total number of neurons goes to infinity we prove that the evolution within each class can be described by a nonlinear limit differential equation driven by a Poisson random measure, and state associated central limit theorems. We study situations in which the limit system exhibits oscillatory behavior, and relate the results to certain piecewise deterministic Markov processes and their diffusion approximations.Comment: 6 figure

Estimation in the partially observed stochastic Morris-Lecar neuronal model with particle filter and stochastic approximation methods

Parameter estimation in multidimensional diffusion models with only one coordinate observed is highly relevant in many biological applications, but a statistically difficult problem. In neuroscience, the membrane potential evolution in single neurons can be measured at high frequency, but biophysical realistic models have to include the unobserved dynamics of ion channels. One such model is the stochastic Morris-Lecar model, defined by a nonlinear two-dimensional stochastic differential equation. The coordinates are coupled, that is, the unobserved coordinate is nonautonomous, the model exhibits oscillations to mimic the spiking behavior, which means it is not of gradient-type, and the measurement noise from intracellular recordings is typically negligible. Therefore, the hidden Markov model framework is degenerate, and available methods break down. The main contributions of this paper are an approach to estimate in this ill-posed situation and nonasymptotic convergence results for the method. Specifically, we propose a sequential Monte Carlo particle filter algorithm to impute the unobserved coordinate, and then estimate parameters maximizing a pseudo-likelihood through a stochastic version of the Expectation-Maximization algorithm. It turns out that even the rate scaling parameter governing the opening and closing of ion channels of the unobserved coordinate can be reasonably estimated. An experimental data set of intracellular recordings of the membrane potential of a spinal motoneuron of a red-eared turtle is analyzed, and the performance is further evaluated in a simulation study.Comment: Published in at http://dx.doi.org/10.1214/14-AOAS729 the Annals of Applied Statistics (http://www.imstat.org/aoas/) by the Institute of Mathematical Statistics (http://www.imstat.org

The space-clamped Hodgkin-Huxley system with random synaptic input: inhibition of spiking by weak noise and analysis with moment equations

We consider a classical space-clamped Hodgkin-Huxley model neuron stimulated by synaptic excitation and inhibition with conductances represented by Ornstein-Uhlenbeck processes. Using numerical solutions of the stochastic model system obtained by an Euler method, it is found that with excitation only there is a critical value of the steady state excitatory conductance for repetitive spiking without noise and for values of the conductance near the critical value small noise has a powerfully inhibitory effect. For a given level of inhibition there is also a critical value of the steady state excitatory conductance for repetitive firing and it is demonstrated that noise either in the excitatory or inhibitory processes or both can powerfully inhibit spiking. Furthermore, near the critical value, inverse stochastic resonance was observed when noise was present only in the inhibitory input process. The system of 27 coupled deterministic differential equations for the approximate first and second order moments of the 6-dimensional model is derived. The moment differential equations are solved using Runge-Kutta methods and the solutions are compared with the results obtained by simulation for various sets of parameters including some with conductances obtained by experiment on pyramidal cells of rat prefrontal cortex. The mean and variance obtained from simulation are in good agreement when there is spiking induced by strong stimulation and relatively small noise or when the voltage is fluctuating at subthreshold levels. In the occasional spike mode sometimes exhibited by spinal motoneurons and cortical pyramidal cells the assunptions underlying the moment equation approach are not satisfied

Warning of a forthcoming collapse of the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation

Tipping to an undesired state in the climate when a control parameter slowly approaches a critical value is a growing concern with increasing greenhouse gas concentrations. Predictions rely on detecting early warning signals (EWSs) in observations of the system. The primary EWSs are increase in variance, (loss of resilience), and increased autocorrelation (critical slow down). These measures are statistical in nature, which implies that the reliability and statistical significance of the detection depends on the sample size in observations and the magnitude of the change away from the base value prior to the approach to the tipping point. Thus, the possibility of providing useful early warning depends on the relative magnitude of several interdependent time scales in the system. These are (a) the time before the critical value is reached, (b) the (inverse) rate of approach to the tipping point, (c) the size of the time window required to detect a significant change in the EWS and finally, (d) the escape time for noise-induced transition (prior to the tipping). Conditions for early warning of tipping of the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation (AMOC) are marginally fulfilled for the existing past $\sim$150 years of proxy observations where indicators of tipping have recently been reported. Here we provide statistical significance and data driven estimators for the time of tipping. We estimate a collapse of the AMOC to occur around the year 2057 under the assumption of a "business as usual" scenario of future emissions.Comment: 18 pages, 7 figure

The Morris-Lecar neuron model embeds a leaky integrate-and-fire model

We show that the stochastic Morris-Lecar neuron, in a neighborhood of its stable point, can be approximated by a two-dimensional Ornstein-Uhlenbeck (OU) modulation of a constant circular motion. The associated radial OU process is an example of a leaky integrate-and-fire (LIF) model prior to firing. A new model constructed from a radial OU process together with a simple firing mechanism based on detailed Morris-Lecar firing statistics reproduces the Morris-Lecar Interspike Interval (ISI) distribution, and has the computational advantages of a LIF. The result justifies the large amount of attention paid to the LIF models.Comment: 19 pages, 6 figure

Neural decoding with visual attention using sequential Monte Carlo for leaky integrate-and-fire neurons

How the brain makes sense of a complicated environment is an important question, and a first step is to be able to reconstruct the stimulus that give rise to an observed brain response. Neural coding relates neurobiological observations to external stimuli using computational methods. Encoding refers to how a stimulus affects the neuronal output, and entails constructing a neural model and parameter estimation. Decoding refers to reconstruction of the stimulus that led to a given neuronal output. Existing decoding methods rarely explain neuronal responses to complicated stimuli in a principled way. Here we perform neural decoding for a mixture of multiple stimuli using the leaky integrate-and-fire model describing neural spike trains, under the visual attention hypothesis of probability mixing in which the neuron only attends to a single stimulus at any given time. We assume either a parallel or serial processing visual search mechanism when decoding multiple simultaneous neurons. We consider one or multiple stochastic stimuli following Ornstein-Uhlenbeck processes, and dynamic neuronal attention that switches following discrete Markov processes. To decode stimuli in such situations, we develop various sequential Monte Carlo particle methods in different settings. The likelihood of the observed spike trains is obtained through the first-passage time probabilities obtained by solving the Fokker-Planck equations. We show that the stochastic stimuli can be successfully decoded by sequential Monte Carlo, and different particle methods perform differently considering the number of observed spike trains, the number of stimuli, model complexity, etc. The proposed novel decoding methods, which analyze the neural data through psychological visual attention theories, provide new perspectives to understand the brain

Weighted Reduced Rank Estimators Under Cointegration Rank Uncertainty

Cointegration analysis was developed for non-stationary linear processes that exhibit stationary relationships between coordinates. Estimation of the cointegration relationships in a multi-dimensional cointegrated process typically proceeds in two steps. First the rank is estimated, then the cointegration matrix is estimated, conditionally on the estimated rank (reduced rank regression). The asymptotics of the estimator is usually derived under the assumption of knowing the true rank. In this paper, we quantify the asymptotic bias and find the asymptotic distributions of the cointegration estimator in case of misspecified rank. Furthermore, we suggest a new class of weighted reduced rank estimators that allow for more flexibility in settings where rank selection is hard. We show empirically that a proper choice of weights can lead to increased predictive performance when there is rank uncertainty. Finally, we illustrate the estimators on empirical EEG data from a psychological experiment on visual processing

Uniform Inference for Cointegrated Vector Autoregressive Processes

Uniformly valid inference for cointegrated vector autoregressive processes has so far proven difficult due to certain discontinuities arising in the asymptotic distribution of the least squares estimator. We show how asymptotic results from the univariate case can be extended to multiple dimensions and how inference can be based on these results. Furthermore, we show that the novel instrumental variable procedure proposed by [20] (IVX) yields uniformly valid confidence regions for the entire autoregressive matrix. The results are applied to two specific examples for which we verify the theoretical findings and investigate finite sample properties in simulation experiments

Fokker–Planck and Fortet Equation-Based Parameter Estimation for a Leaky Integrate-and-Fire Model with Sinusoidal and Stochastic Forcing

Abstract Analysis of sinusoidal noisy leaky integrate-and-fire models and comparison with experimental data are important to understand the neural code and neural synchronization and rhythms. In this paper, we propose two methods to estimate input parameters using interspike interval data only. One is based on numerical solutions of the Fokker–Planck equation, and the other is based on an integral equation, which is fulfilled by the interspike interval probability density. This generalizes previous methods tailored to stationary data to the case of time-dependent input. The main contribution is a binning method to circumvent the problems of nonstationarity, and an easy-to-implement initializer for the numerical procedures. The methods are compared on simulated data. List of Abbreviations LIF: Leaky integrate-and-fire ISI: Interspike interval SDE: Stochastic differential equation PDE: Partial differential equatio