Statistical modelling of higher-order correlations in pools of neural activity

Fernando Montani, Elena Phoka, Mariela Portesi and Simon R. Schultz

Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, 2013, vol. 392, issue 14, 3066-3086

Abstract: Simultaneous recordings from multiple neural units allow us to investigate the activity of very large neural ensembles. To understand how large ensembles of neurons process sensory information, it is necessary to develop suitable statistical models to describe the response variability of the recorded spike trains. Using the information geometry framework, it is possible to estimate higher-order correlations by assigning one interaction parameter to each degree of correlation, leading to a (2N−1)-dimensional model for a population with N neurons. However, this model suffers greatly from a combinatorial explosion, and the number of parameters to be estimated from the available sample size constitutes the main intractability reason of this approach. To quantify the extent of higher than pairwise spike correlations in pools of multiunit activity, we use an information-geometric approach within the framework of the extended central limit theorem considering all possible contributions from higher-order spike correlations. The identification of a deformation parameter allows us to provide a statistical characterisation of the amount of higher-order correlations in the case of a very large neural ensemble, significantly reducing the number of parameters, avoiding the sampling problem, and inferring the underlying dynamical properties of the network within pools of multiunit neural activity.

Keywords: Extended central limit theorem; Large neural ensemble; Multiunit neural activity; Information geometry (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2013
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S037843711300215X
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only. Journal offers the option of making the article available online on Science direct for a fee of $3,000

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:phsmap:v:392:y:2013:i:14:p:3066-3086

DOI: 10.1016/j.physa.2013.03.012

Access Statistics for this article

Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications is currently edited by K. A. Dawson, J. O. Indekeu, H.E. Stanley and C. Tsallis

More articles in Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().