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SUMMARY:Assessing the effects of statistical dependencies on neural popula
 tion coding in the visual pathway - Jonathan Pillow (Gatsby Computational 
 Neuroscience Unit\, UCL)
DTSTART:20080903T150000Z
DTEND:20080903T160000Z
UID:TALK13267@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:Prof Máté Lengyel
DESCRIPTION:How does the joint spiking activity of a neural population enc
 ode a visual scene?  Although the response properties of individual neuron
 s in the visual pathway have been well-studied\, much less is known about 
 the dependencies between neurons\, and their significance for the processi
 ng of visual stimuli.  In this talk\, I will present a model-based approac
 h to understanding the neural code in a population of spiking neurons reco
 rded in primate retina.  A multivariate point-process model (formulated as
  a generalized linear model\, or GLM) captures both the stimulus-dependenc
 e and spatio-temporal correlation structure of responses from a complete p
 opulation of retinal ganglion cells.  In addition to a description of the 
 encoding process\, the model provides a tool for assessing the importance 
 of dependencies to visual processing\, via Bayesian decoding of population
  spike responses.  I will discuss the implications of this framework for s
 tudying the role of correlated activity in the encoding and decoding of se
 nsory signals.
LOCATION: Cambridge University Engineering Department\, Rm #438 (http://ww
 w.gatsby.ucl.ac.uk/~lmate/cbl/cbldirections.html)
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