Event Abstract Back to Event Hidden Markov models for the complex stimulus-response relationships of multi-state neurons Sean Escola1* and Liam Paninski1 1 Columbia University, United States Recent experimental results suggest that neurons are associated with multiple firing regimes, or states. We develop a general framework for estimating state-dependent neural receptive fields from paired spike-train and stimulus data assuming that neurons transition between several discrete hidden states. We modify both the discrete-time and continuous-time traditional hidden Markov model (HMM) frameworks to permit point-process observables such as spike-trains. For maximal flexibility in our model, we allow the external, time-varying stimulus and the neuron's own spike-history to drive both the spiking behavior in each state and the transitioning behavior between states. We employ an appropriately modified expectation-maximization algorithm to learn the model parameters. The expectation step is solved by the standard forward-backward algorithm for HMMs. The maximization step, though it is not analytically tractable, reduces to a simple concave optimization problem if the model is restricted slightly. We test our algorithm on two stimulated data sets and are able both to fully recover the parameters used to generate the data and to accurately recapitulate the sequence of hidden states. As a demonstration of the flexibility of our model, we apply our framework to a recently-published data set of purportedly multi-state neurons and show that we can implement a hybrid half multi-state/half histogram model which captures more of the neuronal variability than either a simple HMM or a simple histogram-based model alone Conference: Bernstein Symposium 2008, Munich, Germany, 8 Oct - 10 Oct, 2008. Presentation Type: Poster Presentation Topic: All Abstracts Citation: Escola S and Paninski L (2008). Hidden Markov models for the complex stimulus-response relationships of multi-state neurons. Front. Comput. Neurosci. Conference Abstract: Bernstein Symposium 2008. doi: 10.3389/conf.neuro.10.2008.01.043 Copyright: The abstracts in this collection have not been subject to any Frontiers peer review or checks, and are not endorsed by Frontiers. They are made available through the Frontiers publishing platform as a service to conference organizers and presenters. The copyright in the individual abstracts is owned by the author of each abstract or his/her employer unless otherwise stated. Each abstract, as well as the collection of abstracts, are published under a Creative Commons CC-BY 4.0 (attribution) licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) and may thus be reproduced, translated, adapted and be the subject of derivative works provided the authors and Frontiers are attributed. For Frontiers’ terms and conditions please see https://www.frontiersin.org/legal/terms-and-conditions. Received: 13 Nov 2008; Published Online: 13 Nov 2008. * Correspondence: Sean Escola, Columbia University, New York, United States, gse3@columbia.edu Login Required This action requires you to be registered with Frontiers and logged in. To register or login click here. Abstract Info Abstract The Authors in Frontiers Sean Escola Liam Paninski Google Sean Escola Liam Paninski Google Scholar Sean Escola Liam Paninski PubMed Sean Escola Liam Paninski Related Article in Frontiers Google Scholar PubMed Abstract Close Back to top Javascript is disabled. Please enable Javascript in your browser settings in order to see all the content on this page.