Synergy from silence in a combinatorial neural code

Elad Schneidman, Jason L. Puchalla, Ronen Segev, Robert A. Harris, William Bialek, Michael J. Berry

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

53 Scopus citations

Abstract

The manner in which groups of neurons represent events in the external world is a central question in neuroscience. Estimation of the information encoded by small groups of neurons has shown that inmanyneural systems, cells carry mildly redundant information. These measures average over all the activity patterns of a neural population. Here, we analyze the population code of the salamander and guinea pig retinas by quantifying the information conveyed by specific multicell activity patterns. Synchronous spikes, even though they are relatively rare and highly informative, convey less information than the sum of either spike alone, making them redundant coding symbols. Instead, patterns of spiking in one cell and silence in others, which are relativelycommonand often overlooked as special coding symbols, were found to be mostly synergistic. Our results reflect that the mild average redundancy between ganglion cells that was previously reported is actually the result of redundant and synergistic multicell patterns, whose contributions partially cancel each other when taking the average over all patterns.Wefurther show that similar coding properties emerge in a generic model of neural responses, suggesting that this form of combinatorial coding, in which specific compound patterns carry synergistic or redundant information, may exist in other neural circuits.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Pages (from-to)15732-15741
Number of pages10
JournalJournal of Neuroscience
Volume31
Issue number44
DOIs
StatePublished - 2011

All Science Journal Classification (ASJC) codes

  • General Neuroscience

Fingerprint

Dive into the research topics of 'Synergy from silence in a combinatorial neural code'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

Cite this