Spike-based strategies for rapid processing.
Most experimental and theoretical studies of brain function assume that neurons transmit information as a rate code, but recent studies on the speed of visual processing impose temporal constraints that appear incompatible with such a coding scheme. Other coding schemes that use the pattern of spikes across a population a neurons may be much more efficient. For example, since strongly activated neurons tend to fire first, one can use the order of firing as a code. We argue that Rank Order Coding is not only very efficient, but also easy to implement in biological hardware: neurons can be made sensitive to the order of activation of their inputs by including a feed-forward shunting inhibition mechanism that progressively desensitizes the neuronal population during a wave of afferent activity. In such a case, maximum activation will only be produced when the afferent inputs are activated in the order of their synaptic weights.
Thorpe
S
S
Centre de Recherche Cerveau & Cognition UMR 5549, Toulouse, France. thorpe@cerco.ups-tlse.fr
Delorme
A
A
Van Rullen
R
R
D000200:Action Potentials / Q000502:physiology*; D000818:Animals; D002490:Central Nervous System / Q000502:physiology*; D006801:Humans; D008959:Models, Neurological; D009415:Nerve Net / Q000502:physiology*; D009474:Neurons / Q000502:physiology*; D010465:Perception / Q000502:physiology; D015398:Signal Transduction / Q000502:physiology*; D009435:Synaptic Transmission / Q000502:physiology*; D013997:Time Factors