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Statistics of connectivity optimizing information storage in recurrent networks

Banff International Research Station for Mathematical Innovation and Discovery

The rules of information storage in cortical circuits are the subject of ongoing debate. Two scenarios have been proposed by theorists: In the first scenario, specific patterns of activity representing external stimuli become fixed-point attractors of the dynamics of the network. In the second, the network stores sequences of patterns of network activity so that when the first pattern is presented the network retrieves the whole sequence. In both scenarios, the right dynamics are achieved thanks to appropriate changes in network connectivity. I will describe how methods from statistical physics can be used to investigate information storage capacity of such networks, and the statistical properties of network connectivity that optimize information storage (distribution of synaptic weights, probabilities of motifs, degree distributions, etc) in both scenarios. Finally, I will compare the theoretical results with available data.

Mathematics; Biology and other natural sciences; Probability theory and stochastic processes; Mathematical biology

video/mp4

Author affiliation: University of Chicago

2016-06-08

Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International

http://hdl.handle.net/2429/58256

Unreviewed

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/