scholarly journals Learning long temporal sequences in spiking networks by multiplexing neural oscillations

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Philippe Vincent-Lamarre ◽  
Matias Calderini ◽  
Jean-Philippe Thivierge

Many cognitive and behavioral tasks – such as interval timing, spatial navigation, motor control and speech – require the execution of precisely-timed sequences of neural activation that cannot be fully explained by a succession of external stimuli. We show how repeatable and reliable patterns of spatiotemporal activity can be generated in chaotic and noisy spiking recurrent neural networks. We propose a general solution for networks to autonomously produce rich patterns of activity by providing a multi-periodic oscillatory signal as input. We show that the model accurately learns a variety of tasks, including speech generation, motor control and spatial navigation. Further, the model performs temporal rescaling of natural spoken words and exhibits sequential neural activity commonly found in experimental data involving temporal processing. In the context of spatial navigation, the model learns and replays compressed sequences of place cells and captures features of neural activity such as the emergence of ripples and theta phase precession. Together, our findings suggest that combining oscillatory neuronal inputs with different frequencies provides a key mechanism to generate precisely timed sequences of activity in recurrent circuits of the brain.

2004 ◽  
Vol 16 (12) ◽  
pp. 2665-2697 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hiroaki Wagatsuma ◽  
Yoko Yamaguchi

The rodent hippocampus has been thought to represent the spatial environment as a cognitive map. The associative connections in the hippocampus imply that a neural entity represents the map as a geometrical network of hippocampal cells in terms of a chart. According to recent experimental observations, the cells fire successively relative to the theta oscillation of the local field potential, called theta phase precession, when the animal is running. This observation suggests the learning of temporal sequences with asymmetric connections in the hippocampus, but it also gives rather inconsistent implications on the formation of the chart that should consist of symmetric connections for space coding. In this study, we hypothesize that the chart is generated with theta phase coding through the integration of asymmetric connections. Our computer experiments use a hippocampal network model to demonstrate that a geometrical network is formed through running experiences in a few minutes. Asymmetric connections are found to remain and distribute heterogeneously in the network. The obtained network exhibits the spatial localization of activities at each instance as the chart does and their propagation that represents behavioral motions with multidirectional properties. We conclude that theta phase precession and the Hebbian rule with a time delay can provide the neural principles for learning the cognitive map.


Hippocampus ◽  
1996 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 149-172 ◽  
Author(s):  
William E. Skaggs ◽  
Bruce L. McNaughton ◽  
Matthew A. Wilson ◽  
Carol A. Barnes

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-9
Author(s):  
Haeme R.P. Park ◽  
Miranda R. Chilver ◽  
Arthur Montalto ◽  
Javad Jamshidi ◽  
Peter R. Schofield ◽  
...  

Abstract Background Although mental wellbeing has been linked with positive health outcomes, including longevity and improved emotional and cognitive functioning, studies examining the underlying neural mechanisms of both subjective and psychological wellbeing have been sparse. We assessed whether both forms of wellbeing are associated with neural activity engaged during positive and negative emotion processing and the extent to which this association is driven by genetics or environment. Methods We assessed mental wellbeing in 230 healthy adult monozygotic and dizygotic twins using a previously validated questionnaire (COMPAS-W) and undertook functional magnetic resonance imaging during a facial emotion viewing task. We used linear mixed models to analyse the association between COMPAS-W scores and emotion-elicited neural activation. Univariate twin modelling was used to evaluate heritability of each brain region. Multivariate twin modelling was used to compare twin pairs to assess the contributions of genetic and environmental factors to this association. Results Higher levels of wellbeing were associated with greater neural activity in the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, localised in the right inferior frontal gyrus (IFG), in response to positive emotional expressions of happiness. Univariate twin modelling showed activity in the IFG to have 20% heritability. Multivariate twin modelling suggested that the association between wellbeing and positive emotion-elicited neural activity was driven by common variance from unique environment (r = 0.208) rather than shared genetics. Conclusions Higher mental wellbeing may have a basis in greater engagement of prefrontal neural regions in response to positive emotion, and this association may be modifiable by unique life experiences.


2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (7_suppl3) ◽  
pp. 2325967121S0015
Author(s):  
Dustin R. Grooms ◽  
Jed A. Diekfuss ◽  
Alexis B. Slutsky-Ganesh ◽  
Cody R. Criss ◽  
Manish Anand ◽  
...  

Background: Anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) injury is secondary to a multifactorial etiology encompassing anatomical, biological, mechanical, and neurological factors. The nature of the injury being primarily due to non-contact mechanics further implicates neural control as a key injury-risk factor, though it has received considerably less study. Purpose: To determine the contribution of neural activity to injury-risk mechanics in ecological sport-specific VR landing scenarios. Methods: Ten female high-school soccer players (15.5±0.85 years; 165.0±6.09 cm; 59.1±11.84 kg) completed a neuroimaging session to capture neural activity during a bilateral leg press and a 3D biomechanics session performing a header within a VR soccer scenario. The bilateral leg press involved four 30 s blocks of repeated bilateral leg presses paced to a metronome beat of 1.2 Hz with 30 s rest between blocks. The VR soccer scenario simulated a corner-kick, requiring the participant to jump and head a virtual soccer ball into a virtual goal (Figure 1A-E). Initial contact and peak knee flexion and abduction angles were extracted during the landing from the header as injury-risk variables of interest and were correlated with neural activity. Results: Evidenced in Table 1 and Figure 1 (bottom row), increased initial contact abduction, increased peak abduction, and decreased peak flexion were associated with increased sensory, visual-spatial, and cerebellar activity (r2= 0.42-0.57, p corrected < .05, z max > 3.1, table & figure 1). Decreased initial contact flexion was associated with increased frontal cortex activity (r2= 0.68, p corrected < .05, z max > 3.1). Conclusion: Reduced neural efficiency (increased activation) of key regions that integrate proprioceptive, visual-spatial, and neurocognitive activity for motor control may influence injury-risk mechanics in sport. The regions found to increase in activity in relation to higher injury-risk mechanics are typically activated to assist with spatial navigation, environmental interaction, and precise motor control. The requirement for athletes to increase their activity for more basic knee motor control may result in fewer neural resources available to maintain knee joint alignment, allocate environmental attention, and handle increased motor coordination demands. These data indicate that strategies to enhance efficiency of visual-spatial and cognitive-motor control during high demand sporting activities is warranted to improve ACL injury-risk reduction. [Figure: see text][Table: see text]


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