Mathematical analysis of the signal propagation characteristics of neuronal networks

Abstract

AbstractIt is important to understand the relationship between spatiotemporal patterns of neuronal populations and information processing of the brain for medical and engineering purposes. Although, there are some methods to record neuronal population, basically only the information about firing rate can be obtained from those methods. Therefore, some methods are suggested to estimate the internal state of the neuronal population from the information about firing. In this research, we investigated the relationship between firing rates and responses to external electrical stimuli by using neuronal population models. We developed a method to manipulate neuronal parameters to make neuronal populations exhibit different dynamical properties while keeping firing rates intact. As a result, we found that there are some cases where the internal states are different even though they share the same firing rate. This result suggests that there is some information that cannot be obtained by using only the information about firing rates.