Nat Commun: How the brain processes sensory signals efficiently

February 2, 2021 /--- a recent study published in the journal Nature Communications revealed how the brain processes external signals.
that there is a kind of coordination of neural activity called split-related in the visual system of mice.
the study was carried out by Ruben Moreno-Bote, a research professor at upF's Department of Information and Communication Technology (DTIC).
(Photo Source: www.pixabay.com) visual and visual information is distributed in dozens of brain regions and hundreds of millions of neurons.
if visual information, such as facial identity, is divided into small packets located in each neuron, and the packets are independent, it is necessary to "read" the activity of all neurons to extract complete sensory information.
ruben explains: "Another possibility is that the packet is larger, so neurons have a lot of sensory information, just as it can be compressed and repeated in many neurons."
this case, the nerve code will be redundant.
" redundant code has the advantage of using only a small number of neurons to extract all the visual information contained in the brain, which can happen if there is some correlation or coordination of neural activity in the brain, called a fractional correlation.
, Moreno-Bote and others have predicted this coordination between neurons in previous studies.
this paper assumes that these trace correlations may be very weak and difficult to measure.
they are thought to significantly limit the amount of information in the brain.
the new study, the authors demonstrated a differential correlation in mouse vision systems.
, they used calcium ion imaging.
allowed researchers to study the activity of nearly 500 neurons at the same time.
these techniques, despite their weaknesses, are able to detect differential correlations.
study showed that the trace correlation limited the information in the rodent's brain.
study showed that by reading nearly 10% of the neurons in the primary visual cortical layer, all the information contained in 100% of the neurons could be extracted, so that reading one-tenth of the neural activity could extract all the information that existed.
Moreno-Bote said: "Our results suggest that perhaps we don't always use the whole brain, and in some cases we don't need to use 100% neurons to perfectly recognize stimuli, so using 10% allows us to perform as well as we do with 100%."
added: "Our results show that the brain is an efficient machine that distributes sensory signals efficiently, because using a small number of neurons can extract all the information needed as long as the sensory stimulation is needed."
" (Bioon.com) Source: A study reveals that brain distributes sensory information highly efficiently Original source: Mohammad Mehdi Kafashan et al, Scaling of sensory information in large neural populations show shows signatures of information-limiting, Nature Communications (2021). DOI: 10.1038/s41467-020-20722-y