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Published on: January 10, 2015
Neural circuitry for recognizing interspike interval sequences
Henry D I Abarbanel1, Sachin S Talathi
1Department of Physics and Marine Physical Laboratory (Scripps Institution of Oceanography), University of California-San Diego, La Jolla, CA 92093-0402, USA. hdia@jacobi.ucsd.edu
Abstract:
Sensory systems present environmental information to central nervous system as sequences of action potentials or spikes. How do animals recognize these sequences carrying information about their world? We present a biologically inspired neural circuit designed to enable spike pattern recognition. This circuit is capable of training itself on a given interspike interval (ISI) sequence and is then able to respond to presentations of the same sequence. The essential ingredients of the recognition circuit are (a) a tunable time delay circuit, (b) a spike selection unit, and (c) a tuning mechanism using spike timing dependent plasticity of inhibitory synapses. We have investigated this circuit using Hodgkin-Huxley neuron models connected by realistic excitatory and inhibitory synapses. It is robust in the presence of noise represented as jitter in the spike times of the ISI sequence.
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