Neural codes formed by small and temporally precise populations in auditory cortex

The encoding of sensory information by populations of cortical neurons forms the basis for perception but remains poorly understood. To understand the constraints of cortical population coding we analyzed neural responses to natural sounds recorded in auditory cortex of primates (Macaca mulatta). We estimated stimulus information while varying the composition and size of the considered population. Consistent with previous reports we found that when choosing subpopulations randomly from the recorded ensemble, the average population information increases steadily with population size. This scaling was explained by a model assuming that each neuron carried equal amounts of information, and that any overlap between the information carried by each neuron arises purely from random sampling within the stimulus space. However, when studying subpopulations selected to optimize information for each given population size, the scaling of information was strikingly different: a small fraction of temporally precise cells carried the vast majority of information. This scaling could be explained by an extended model, assuming that the amount of information carried by individual neurons was highly nonuniform, with few neurons carrying large amounts of information. Importantly, these optimal populations can be determined by a single biophysical marker—the neuron's encoding time scale—allowing their detection and readout within biologically realistic circuits. These results show that extrapolations of population information based on random ensembles may overestimate the population size required for stimulus encoding, and that sensory cortical circuits may process information using small but highly informative ensembles

Finite Temperature Lattice QCD in the Large N Limit

Our aim is to give a self-contained review of recent advances in the analytic description of the deconfinement transition and determination of the deconfinement temperature in lattice QCD at large N. We also include some new results, as for instance in the comparison of the analytic results with Montecarlo simulations. We first review the general set-up of finite temperature lattice gauge theories, using asymmetric lattices, and develop a consistent perturbative expansion in the coupling $\beta_s$ of the space-like plaquettes. We study in detail the effective models for the Polyakov loop obtained, in the zeroth order approximation in $\beta_s$, both from the Wilson action (symmetric lattice) and from the heat kernel action (completely asymmetric lattice). The distinctive feature of the heat kernel model is its relation with two-dimensional QCD on a cylinder; the Wilson model, on the other hand, can be exactly reduced to a twisted one-plaquette model via a procedure of the Eguchi-Kawai type. In the weak coupling regime both models can be related to exactly solvable Kazakov-Migdal matrix models. The instability of the weak coupling solution is due in both cases to a condensation of instantons; in the heat kernel case, it is directly related to the Douglas-Kazakov transition of QCD2. A detailed analysis of these results provides rather accurate predictions of the deconfinement temperature. In spite of the zeroth order approximation they are in good agreement with the Montecarlo simulations in 2+1 dimensions, while in 3+1 dimensions they only agree with the Montecarlo results away from the continuum limit.Comment: 66 pages, plain Latex, figures included by eps

Two dimensional QCD is a one dimensional Kazakov-Migdal model

We calculate the partition functions of QCD in two dimensions on a cylinder and on a torus in the gauge $\partial_{0} A_{0} = 0$ by integrating explicitly over the non zero modes of the Fourier expansion in the periodic time variable. The result is a one dimensional Kazakov-Migdal matrix model with eigenvalues on a circle rather than on a line. We prove that our result coincides with the standard expansion in representations of the gauge group. This involves a non trivial modular transformation from an expansion in exponentials of $g^2$ to one in exponentials of $1/g^2$. Finally we argue that the states of the $U(N)$ or $SU(N)$ partition function can be interpreted as a gas of N free fermions, and the grand canonical partition function of such ensemble is given explicitly as an infinite product.Comment: DFTT 15/93, 17 pages, Latex (Besides minor changes and comments added we note that for U(N) odd and even N have to be treated separately

A theoretical model of neuronal population coding of stimuli with both continuous and discrete dimensions

In a recent study the initial rise of the mutual information between the firing rates of N neurons and a set of p discrete stimuli has been analytically evaluated, under the assumption that neurons fire independently of one another to each stimulus and that each conditional distribution of firing rates is gaussian. Yet real stimuli or behavioural correlates are high-dimensional, with both discrete and continuously varying features.Moreover, the gaussian approximation implies negative firing rates, which is biologically implausible. Here, we generalize the analysis to the case where the stimulus or behavioural correlate has both a discrete and a continuous dimension. In the case of large noise we evaluate the mutual information up to the quadratic approximation as a function of population size. Then we consider a more realistic distribution of firing rates, truncated at zero, and we prove that the resulting correction, with respect to the gaussian firing rates, can be expressed simply as a renormalization of the noise parameter. Finally, we demonstrate the effect of averaging the distribution across the discrete dimension, evaluating the mutual information only with respect to the continuously varying correlate.Comment: 20 pages, 10 figure

Effective actions for finite temperature Lattice Gauge Theories

We consider a lattice gauge theory at finite temperature in ($d$+1) dimensions with the Wilson action and different couplings $\beta_t$ and $\beta_s$ for timelike and spacelike plaquettes. By using the character expansion and Schwinger-Dyson type equations we construct, order by order in $\beta_s$, an effective action for the Polyakov loops which is exact to all orders in $\beta_t$. As an example we construct the first non-trivial order in $\beta_s$ for the (3+1) dimensional SU(2) model and use this effective action to extract the deconfinement temperature of the model.Comment: Talk presented at LATTICE96(finite temperature

Reading spike timing without a clock: intrinsic decoding of spike trains

The precise timing of action potentials of sensory neurons relative to the time of stimulus presentation carries substantial sensory information that is lost or degraded when these responses are summed over longer time windows. However, it is unclear whether and how downstream networks can access information in precise time-varying neural responses. Here, we review approaches to test the hypothesis that the activity of neural populations provides the temporal reference frames needed to decode temporal spike patterns. These approaches are based on comparing the single-trial stimulus discriminability obtained from neural codes defined with respect to network-intrinsic reference frames to the discriminability obtained from codes defined relative to the experimenter's computer clock. Application of this formalism to auditory, visual and somatosensory data shows that information carried by millisecond-scale spike times can be decoded robustly even with little or no independent external knowledge of stimulus time. In cortex, key components of such intrinsic temporal reference frames include dedicated neural populations that signal stimulus onset with reliable and precise latencies, and low-frequency oscillations that can serve as reference for partitioning extended neuronal responses into informative spike patterns