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Near-optimal information relay by the neuronal population of layer 4 barrel cortex

Revah, O.; Wolf, F.; Gutnick, M. J.; Neef, A.

2024-02-16 neuroscience
10.1101/2024.02.15.580451 bioRxiv
Show abstract

Sixty years after the concept of population coding in neuronal networks was introduced, we still lack a comprehensive understanding of its performance limits and the role of neuronal physiology. Here, we use dynamic gain analysis in a general model of population coding and demonstrate that disparate parameters of neurons and populations determine how accurately they can encode information. These are cell number, cell size, and the correlation time of the background noise. We experimentally test and confirm these predictions on excitatory populations in the mouse barrel cortex. Surprisingly, dendrite size and background correlations are precisely matched with the number of neurons in layer 4, such that even a single thalamocortical spike at the input is reliably reflected in the population output. However, this encoding performance can be modulated by the channels that mediate M-current, suggesting that coding in layer 4 may vary as a function of brain state.

Published in PLOS Biology (predicted rank #16) · training set

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