IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/plo/pcbi00/1003793.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Sparsity and Compressed Coding in Sensory Systems

Author

Listed:
  • Victor J Barranca
  • Gregor Kovačič
  • Douglas Zhou
  • David Cai

Abstract

Considering that many natural stimuli are sparse, can a sensory system evolve to take advantage of this sparsity? We explore this question and show that significant downstream reductions in the numbers of neurons transmitting stimuli observed in early sensory pathways might be a consequence of this sparsity. First, we model an early sensory pathway using an idealized neuronal network comprised of receptors and downstream sensory neurons. Then, by revealing a linear structure intrinsic to neuronal network dynamics, our work points to a potential mechanism for transmitting sparse stimuli, related to compressed-sensing (CS) type data acquisition. Through simulation, we examine the characteristics of networks that are optimal in sparsity encoding, and the impact of localized receptive fields beyond conventional CS theory. The results of this work suggest a new network framework of signal sparsity, freeing the notion from any dependence on specific component-space representations. We expect our CS network mechanism to provide guidance for studying sparse stimulus transmission along realistic sensory pathways as well as engineering network designs that utilize sparsity encoding.Author Summary: In forming a mental percept of the surrounding world, sensory information is processed and transmitted through a wide array of neuronal networks of various sizes and functionalities. Despite, and perhaps because of, this, sensory systems are able to render highly accurate representations of stimuli. In the retina, for example, photoreceptors transform light into electric signals, which are later processed by a significantly smaller network of ganglion cells before entering the optic nerve. How then is sensory information preserved along such a pathway? In this work, we put forth a possible answer to this question using compressed sensing, a recent advance in the field of signal processing that demonstrates how sparse signals can be reconstructed using very few samples. Through model simulation, we discover that stimuli can be recovered from ganglion-cell dynamics, and demonstrate how localized receptive fields improve stimulus encoding. We hypothesize that organisms have evolved to utilize the sparsity of stimuli, demonstrating that compressed sensing may be a universal information-processing framework underlying both information acquisition and retention in sensory systems.

Suggested Citation

  • Victor J Barranca & Gregor Kovačič & Douglas Zhou & David Cai, 2014. "Sparsity and Compressed Coding in Sensory Systems," PLOS Computational Biology, Public Library of Science, vol. 10(8), pages 1-11, August.
  • Handle: RePEc:plo:pcbi00:1003793
    DOI: 10.1371/journal.pcbi.1003793
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.plos.org/ploscompbiol/article?id=10.1371/journal.pcbi.1003793
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://journals.plos.org/ploscompbiol/article/file?id=10.1371/journal.pcbi.1003793&type=printable
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1371/journal.pcbi.1003793?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Srdjan Ostojic & Nicolas Brunel, 2011. "From Spiking Neuron Models to Linear-Nonlinear Models," PLOS Computational Biology, Public Library of Science, vol. 7(1), pages 1-16, January.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Yuxin Zhang & Yifei Yang & Xiaosi Li & Zijing Yuan & Yuki Todo & Haichuan Yang, 2023. "A Dendritic Neuron Model Optimized by Meta-Heuristics with a Power-Law-Distributed Population Interaction Network for Financial Time-Series Forecasting," Mathematics, MDPI, vol. 11(5), pages 1-20, March.
    2. Omri Harish & David Hansel, 2015. "Asynchronous Rate Chaos in Spiking Neuronal Circuits," PLOS Computational Biology, Public Library of Science, vol. 11(7), pages 1-38, July.
    3. Pengcheng Zhou & Shawn D Burton & Adam C Snyder & Matthew A Smith & Nathaniel N Urban & Robert E Kass, 2015. "Establishing a Statistical Link between Network Oscillations and Neural Synchrony," PLOS Computational Biology, Public Library of Science, vol. 11(10), pages 1-25, October.
    4. Richard Naud & Wulfram Gerstner, 2012. "Coding and Decoding with Adapting Neurons: A Population Approach to the Peri-Stimulus Time Histogram," PLOS Computational Biology, Public Library of Science, vol. 8(10), pages 1-14, October.
    5. Skander Mensi & Olivier Hagens & Wulfram Gerstner & Christian Pozzorini, 2016. "Enhanced Sensitivity to Rapid Input Fluctuations by Nonlinear Threshold Dynamics in Neocortical Pyramidal Neurons," PLOS Computational Biology, Public Library of Science, vol. 12(2), pages 1-38, February.
    6. Michelle F Craft & Andrea K Barreiro & Shree Hari Gautam & Woodrow L Shew & Cheng Ly, 2021. "Differences in olfactory bulb mitral cell spiking with ortho- and retronasal stimulation revealed by data-driven models," PLOS Computational Biology, Public Library of Science, vol. 17(9), pages 1-28, September.
    7. James Trousdale & Yu Hu & Eric Shea-Brown & Krešimir Josić, 2012. "Impact of Network Structure and Cellular Response on Spike Time Correlations," PLOS Computational Biology, Public Library of Science, vol. 8(3), pages 1-15, March.
    8. Julian Rossbroich & Daniel Trotter & John Beninger & Katalin Tóth & Richard Naud, 2021. "Linear-nonlinear cascades capture synaptic dynamics," PLOS Computational Biology, Public Library of Science, vol. 17(3), pages 1-27, March.
    9. Evan S Schaffer & Srdjan Ostojic & L F Abbott, 2013. "A Complex-Valued Firing-Rate Model That Approximates the Dynamics of Spiking Networks," PLOS Computational Biology, Public Library of Science, vol. 9(10), pages 1-11, October.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:plo:pcbi00:1003793. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: ploscompbiol (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://journals.plos.org/ploscompbiol/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.