Synaptic Transmission: An Information-Theoretic Perspective

dc.creatorManwani, A.
dc.creatorKoch, C.
dc.date1998-09-22
dc.date.accessioned2026-07-07T05:57:52Z
dc.date.available2026-07-07T05:57:52Z
dc.descriptionHere we analyze synaptic transmission from an information-theoretic perspective. We derive closed-form expressions for the lower-bounds on the capacity of a simple model of a cortical synapse under two explicit coding paradigms. Under the ``signal estimation'' paradigm, we assume the signal to be encoded in the mean firing rate of a Poisson neuron. The performance of an optimal linear estimator of the signal then provides a lower bound on the capacity for signal estimation. Under the ``signal detection'' paradigm, the presence or absence of the signal has to be detected. Performance of the optimal spike detector allows us to compute a lower bound on the capacity for signal detection. We find that single synapses (for empirically measured parameter values) transmit information poorly but significant improvement can be achieved with a small amount of redundancy.
dc.description7 pages, 4 figures, NIPS97 proceedings: neuroscience. Originally submitted to the neuro-sys archive which was never publicly announced (was 9809002)
dc.identifierhttps://arxiv.org/abs/q-bio/0309030
dc.identifierhttp://arxiv.org/abs/q-bio/0309030
dc.identifierAdvances in Neural Information Processing Systems 10, Michael I. Jordan, Michael J. Kearns and Sara Solla (eds.), 1997
dc.identifier.urihttp://salesiana.dossiersoluciones.com/handle/123456789/88150
dc.subjectNeurons and Cognition
dc.titleSynaptic Transmission: An Information-Theoretic Perspective
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