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Updated: Jun 9, 2026

Closed-loop Neuro-robotic Experiments to Test Computational Properties of Neuronal Networks
Published on: March 2, 2015
A complex vector space model of single neuronal coding and experience
1Western Clinical School, Westmead Hospital, Hawkesbury Road, Westmead, NSW 2145, Australia. aduggins@med.usyd.edu.au
Abstract:
A model of consciousness is proposed, in which the experience attributable to a single sensory neuron is related to its instantaneous firing rate. In that this can only be quantified within statistical limits from the incidence of spikes across multiple presentations of a stimulus, consciousness remains inaccessible to direct measurement on a single trial. In this way, the model disambiguates subjective experience from objective neural properties. The model adopts a quantum mechanical formalism, in which the state of the neuron is represented as a vector in a complex vector space.
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