title: An analog VLSI implementation of a visual interneuron: enhanced sensory processing through biophysical modeling.
abstract: Flies are capable of rapid, coordinated flight through unstructured environments. This flight is guided by visual motion information that is extracted from photoreceptors in a robust manner. One feature of the fly's visual processing that adds to this robustness is the saturation of wide-field motion-sensitive neuron responses with increasing pattern size. This makes the cell's responses less dependent on the sparseness of the optical flow field while retaining motion information. By implementing a compartmental neuronal model in silicon, we add this "gain control" to an existing analog VLSI model of fly vision. This results in enhanced performance in a compact, low-power CMOS motion sensor. Our silicon system also demonstrates that modern, biophysically-detailed models of neural sensory processing systems can be instantiated in VLSI hardware.
authors.affiliation: Computation and Neural Systems Program, California Institute of Technology, Pasedena 91125, USA. [harrison, koch]@klab.caltech.edu
authors.forename: R R
authors.initials: RR
authors.lastname: Harrison
authors.forename: C
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Koch
mesh_terms: D000465:Algorithms; D000818:Animals; D003199:Computer Systems; D003202:Computers, Analog; D004175:Diptera; D004553:Electric Conductivity; D005426:Flight, Animal; D007395:Interneurons / Q000502:physiology*; D008959:Models, Neurological; D009039:Motion Perception; D017956:Photoreceptor Cells, Invertebrate / Q000502:physiology*; D012684:Sensory Thresholds; D012825:Silicon; D014785:Vision, Ocular
chemical_list: D012825:Silicon