In this paper we describe an analog VLSI circuit, fabricated using a standard 2 mu m, n-well, BiCMOS process, which utilizes floating-gate structures for non-volatile, on-chip, analog parameter storage. This circuit i...
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In this paper we describe an analog VLSI circuit, fabricated using a standard 2 mu m, n-well, BiCMOS process, which utilizes floating-gate structures for non-volatile, on-chip, analog parameter storage. This circuit is designed to operate in the context of a hardware model of the primate oculomotor system and performs visually-guided, saccadic adaptation. The chip contains a one-dimensional array of photoreceptors and floating-gate circuits which are used to map retinal positions to motor output commands. The system's functionality is demonstrated by training the chip with several different mapping functions using a supervised-learning technique.
Tactile responses in the granule cell layers of the cerebellar hemispheres of rats are topographically arranged as a series of patches each representing a different region of the body surface. Previous observations ha...
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Tactile responses in the granule cell layers of the cerebellar hemispheres of rats are topographically arranged as a series of patches each representing a different region of the body surface. Previous observations had suggested that patches representing specific body parts recur in similar folial positions in different individuals;however, these relationships were not quantified. In this study we make inter-animal comparisons of the detailed distribution of receptive fields in the granule cell layer of the crown of crus IIa by using physiological mapping techniques. The results suggest that maps from different individuals do, in fact, share several topological features. These include the regions of the body surface represented, the general proportions of these representations, the relative position of patches representing the same body parts, and the organization of receptive fields within patches located in similar positions. The principal variability seen in these comparisons was in the detailed neighborhood relations between different patches. As a result of the analysis of the consistent and variable features of these maps, we propose and discuss a new role for these cerebellar regions in coordinating the acquisition of tactile sensory information.
1. Compartmental modeling experiments were carried out in an anatomically characterized neocortical pyramidal cell to study the integrative behavior of a complex dendritic tree containing active membrane mechanisms. B...
1. Compartmental modeling experiments were carried out in an anatomically characterized neocortical pyramidal cell to study the integrative behavior of a complex dendritic tree containing active membrane mechanisms. Building on a previously presented hypothesis, this work provides further support for a novel principle of dendritic information processing that could underlie a capacity for nonlinear pattern discrimination and/or sensory processing within the dendritic trees of individual nerve cells. 2. It was previously demonstrated that when excitatory synaptic input to a pyramidal cell is dominated by voltage-dependent N-methyl-D-aspartate (NMDA)-type channels, the cell responds more strongly when synaptic drive is concentrated within several dendritic regions than when it is delivered diffusely across the dendritic arbor. This effect, called dendritic ''cluster sensitivity,'' persisted under wide-ranging parameter variations and directly implicated the spatial ordering of afferent synaptic connections onto the dendritic tree as an important determinant of neuronal response selectivity. 3. In this work, the sensitivity of neocortical dendrites to spatially clustered synaptic drive has been further studied with fast sodium and slow calcium spiking mechanisms present in the dendritic membrane. Several spatial distributions of the dendritic spiking mechanisms were tested with and without NMDA synapses. Results of numerous simulations reveal that dendritic cluster sensitivity is a highly robust phenomenon in dendrites containing a sufficiency of excitatory membrane mechanisms and is only weakly dependent on their detailed spatial distribution, peak conductances, or kinetics. Factors that either work against or make irrelevant the dendritic cluster sensitivity effect include 1) very high-resistance spine necks, 2) very large synaptic conductances, 3) very high baseline levels of synaptic activity, and 4) large fluctuations in level of synaptic activity on short time sca
Shunting inhibition, a conductance increase with a reversal potential close to the resting potential of the cell, has been shown to have a divisive effect on subthreshold excitatory postsynaptic potential amplitudes. ...
Shunting inhibition, a conductance increase with a reversal potential close to the resting potential of the cell, has been shown to have a divisive effect on subthreshold excitatory postsynaptic potential amplitudes. It has therefore been assumed to have the same divisive effect on firing rates. We show that shunting inhibition actually has a subtractive effect on the firing rate in most circumstances. Averaged over several interspike intervals, the spiking mechanism effectively clamps the somatic membrane potential to a value significantly above the resting potential, so that the current through the shunting conductance is approximately independent of the firing rate. This leads to a subtractive rather than a divisive effect. In addition, at distal synapses, shunting inhibition will also have an approximately subtractive effect if the excitatory conductance is not small compared to the inhibitory conductance. Therefore regulating a cell's passive membrane conductance-for instance, via massive feedback-is not an adequate mechanism for normalizing or scaling its output.
How can the interaction between theoretical neuro-scientists and their experimental counterparts be improved? This article discusses a number of suggestions relating to the presentation of data in experimental studies...
How can the interaction between theoretical neuro-scientists and their experimental counterparts be improved? This article discusses a number of suggestions relating to the presentation of data in experimental studies. In particular, published data should account for the diversity of response properties encountered, rather than concentrating on the 'representative' response, as well as emphasizing the stochastic nature of neurons by routinely including raw, unprocessed data from individual trials, which show the degree of variability prior to averaging.
Standard techniques for segmenting color images are based on finding normalized RGB discontinuities, color histogramming, or clustering techniques in RGB or CIE color spaces. The use of the psychophysical variable hue...
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Standard techniques for segmenting color images are based on finding normalized RGB discontinuities, color histogramming, or clustering techniques in RGB or CIE color spaces. The use of the psychophysical variable hue in HSI space has not been popular due to its numerical instability at low saturations. In this article, we propose the use of a simplified hue description suitable for implementation in analog VLSI. We demonstrate that if the integrated white condition holds, hue is invariant to certain types of highlights, shading, and shadows. This is due to the additive/shift invariance property, a property that other color variables lack. The more restrictive uniformly varying lighting model associated with the multiplicative/scale invariance property shared by both hue and normalized RGB allows invariance to transparencies, and to simple models of shading and shadows. Using binary hue discontinuities in conjunction with first-order type of surface interpolation, we demonstrate these invariant properties and compare them against the performance of RGB, normalized RGB, and CIE color spaces. We argue that working in HSI space offers an effective method for segmenting scenes in the presence of confounding cues due to shading, transparency, highlights, and shadows. Based on this work, we designed and fabricated for the first time an analog CMOS VLSI circuit with on-board phototransistor input that computes normalized color and hue.
作者：
BOWER, JM1. Division of Biology
Computation and Neural Systems Program California Institute of Technology 91125 Pasadena CA
During learning of overlapping input patterns in an associative memory, recall of previously stored patterns can interfere with the learning of new patterns. Most associative memory models avoid this difficulty by ign...
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During learning of overlapping input patterns in an associative memory, recall of previously stored patterns can interfere with the learning of new patterns. Most associative memory models avoid this difficulty by ignoring the effect of previously modified connections during learning, by clamping network activity to the patterns to be learned. Through the interaction of experimental and modeling techniques, we now have evidence to suggest that a somewhat analogous approach may have been taken by biology within the olfactory cerebral cortex. Specifically we have recently discovered that the naturally occurring neuromodulator acetylcholine produces a variety of effects on cortical cells and circuits which, when taken together, can prevent memory interference in a biologically realistic memory model. Further, it has been demonstrated that these biological mechanisms can actually improve the memory storage performance of previously published abstract ''neural network'' associative memory models.
The spatial coincidence of somatosensory cerebral cortex (SI) and trigeminal projections to the cerebellar hemisphere has been previously demonstrated. In this paper we describe the temporal relationship between tacti...
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The spatial coincidence of somatosensory cerebral cortex (SI) and trigeminal projections to the cerebellar hemisphere has been previously demonstrated. In this paper we describe the temporal relationship between tactilely-evoked responses in SI and in the granule cell layer of the cerebellar hemisphere, in anesthetized rats. We simultaneously recorded field potentials in areas of common receptive fields of SI and of the cerebellar folium crus IIa after peripheral tactile stimulation of the corresponding facial area. Response of the cerebellar granule cell layer to a brief tactile stimulation consisted of two components at different latencies. We found a strong correlation between the latency of the SI response and that of the second (long-latency) cerebellar component following facial stimulation. No such relationship was found between the latency of the SI response and that of the first (short-latency) cerebellar component, originating from a direct trigeminocerebellar pathway. In addition, lidocaine pressure injection in SI, cortical ablation, and decerebration all significantly affected the second cerebellar peak but not the first. Further, when tactile stimuli were presented 75 ms apart, the response in SI failed, as did the second cerebellar peak, while the short-latency cerebellar response still occurred. We found a wide spatial distribution of the upper lip response beyond the upper lip area in crus IIa for the long-latency component of the cerebellar response. Our results demonstrate that SI is the primary contributor to the cerebellar long-latency response to peripheral tactile stimulation. These results are discussed in the context of Purkinje cell responses to tactile input.
Several encouraging developments towards identifying the neuronal correlate of visual awareness have emerged recently. Increasingly sophisticated behavioral paradigms permit the study of visual awareness in humans as ...
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Several encouraging developments towards identifying the neuronal correlate of visual awareness have emerged recently. Increasingly sophisticated behavioral paradigms permit the study of visual awareness in humans as well as in non-human primates. In patients with anatomically restricted lesions in striate and extrastriate cortex, highly informative deficits of visual awareness are observed. Similar deficits can be obtained in normal observers with a novel class of psychophysical displays. Taken together, these results suggest that the contents of visual awareness reflect neuronal activity in certain extrastriate, but not in striate, visual cortical areas.
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