Biomedical subjects

Garrett T Kenyon

Publications and source records attributed to Garrett T Kenyon.

6 recordsLinked to original sources

PubMed2006

See globally, spike locally: oscillations in a retinal model encode large visual features.

We show that coherent oscillations among neighboring ganglion cells in a retinal model encode global topological properties, such as size, that cannot be deduced unambiguously from their local, time-averaged firing rates. Whereas ganglion cells may fire similar numbers of spikes in response to both small and large spots, only large spots evoke coherent high frequency oscillations, potentially allowing downstream neurons to infer global stimulus properties from their local afferents. To determine whether such information might be extracted over physiologically realistic spatial and temporal scales, we analyzed artificial spike trains whose oscillatory correlations were similar to those measured experimentally. Oscillatory power in the upper gamma band, extracted on single-trials from multi-unit spike trains, supported good to excellent size discrimination between small and large spots, with performance improving as the number of cells and/or duration of the analysis window was increased. By using Poisson distributed spikes to normalize the firing rate across stimulus conditions, we further found that coincidence detection, or synchrony, yielded substantially poorer performance on identical size discrimination tasks. To determine whether size encoding depended on contiguity independent of object shape, we examined the total oscillatory activity across the entire model retina in response to random binary images. As the ON-pixel probability crossed the percolation threshold, which marks the sudden emergence of large connected clusters, the total gamma-band activity exhibited a sharp transition, a phenomena that may be experimentally observable. Finally, a reanalysis of previously published oscillatory responses from cat ganglion cells revealed size encoding consistent with that predicted by the retinal model.

Action Potentials↗

PubMed2005

Time-to-Collision estimation from motion based on primate visual processing.

A population coded algorithm, built on established models of motion processing in the primate visual system, computes the time-to-collision of a mobile robot to real-world environmental objects from video imagery. A set of four transformations starts with motion energy, a spatiotemporal frequency based computation of motion features. The following processing stages extract image velocity features similar to, but distinct from, optic flow; "translation" features, which account for velocity errors including those resulting from the aperture problem; and finally, estimate the time-to-collision. Biologically motivated population coding distinguishes this approach from previous methods based on optic flow. A comparison of the population coded approach with the popular optic flow algorithm of Lucas and Kanade against three types of approaching objects shows that the proposed method produces more robust time-to-collision information from a real world input stimulus in the presence of the aperture problem and other noise sources. The improved performance comes with increased computational cost, which would ideally be mitigated by special purpose hardware architectures.

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PubMed2004

Stimulus-specific oscillations in a retinal model.

High-frequency oscillatory potentials (HFOPs) in the vertebrate retina are stimulus specific. The phases of HFOPs recorded at any given retinal location drift randomly over time, but regions activated by the same stimulus tend to remain phase locked with approximately zero lag, whereas regions activated by spatially separate stimuli are typically uncorrelated. Based on retinal anatomy, we previously postulated that HFOPs are mediated by feedback from a class of axon-bearing amacrine cells that receive excitation from neighboring ganglion cells-via gap junctions-and make inhibitory synapses back onto the surrounding ganglion cells. Using a computer model, we show here that such circuitry can account for the stimulus specificity of HFOPs in response to both high- and low-contrast features. Phase locking between pairs of model ganglion cells did not depend critically on their separation distance, but on whether the applied stimulus created a continuous path between them. The degree of phase locking between spatially separate stimuli was reduced by lateral inhibition, which created a buffer zone around strongly activated regions. Stimulating the inhibited region between spatially separate stimuli increased their degree of phase locking proportionately. Our results suggest several experimental strategies for testing the hypothesis that stimulus-specific HFOPs arise from axon-mediated feedback in the inner retina.

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PubMed2004

Correlated firing improves stimulus discrimination in a retinal model.

Synchronous firing limits the amount of information that can be extracted by averaging the firing rates of similarly tuned neurons. Here, we show that the loss of such rate-coded information due to synchronous oscillations between retinal ganglion cells can be overcome by exploiting the information encoded by the correlations themselves. Two very different models, one based on axon-mediated inhibitory feedback and the other on oscillatory common input, were used to generate artificial spike trains whose synchronous oscillations were similar to those measured experimentally. Pooled spike trains were summed into a threshold detector whose output was classified using Bayesian discrimination. For a threshold detector with short summation times, realistic oscillatory input yielded superior discrimination of stimulus intensity compared to rate-matched Poisson controls. Even for summation times too long to resolve synchronous inputs, gamma band oscillations still contributed to improved discrimination by reducing the total spike count variability, or Fano factor. In separate experiments in which neurons were synchronized in a stimulus-dependent manner without attendant oscillations, the Fano factor increased markedly with stimulus intensity, implying that stimulus-dependent oscillations can offset the increased variability due to synchrony alone.

Algorithms↗

PubMedDate not supplied

A theory of the Benham Top based on center-surround interactions in the parvocellular pathway.

A model color-opponent neuron was used to investigate the subjective colors evoked by the Benham Top (BT). Color-opponent inputs from cone-selective parvocellular (P) pathway neurons with center-surround receptive fields were subtracted with a short relative delay, yielding a small transient input in response to a white spot. This transient input was amplified by BT-like stimuli, modeled as a thin dark bar followed by full-field illumination. The narrow bar produced maximal activation of the P-pathway surrounds but only partial activation of the P-pathway centers. Due to saturation, subsequent removal of the bar had little effect on the P-pathway surrounds, whereas the transient input from the P-pathway centers was amplified via disinhibition. Responses to BT-like stimuli became weaker as surround sensitivity recovered, producing an effect analogous to the progression of perceived BT colors. Our results suggest that the BT-illusion arises because cone-selective neurons convey information about both color and luminance contrast, allowing the two signals become confounded.

Animals↗

PubMedDate not supplied

A model of high-frequency oscillatory potentials in retinal ganglion cells.

High-frequency oscillatory potentials (HFOPs) have been recorded from ganglion cells in cat, rabbit, frog, and mudpuppy retina and in electroretinograms (ERGs) from humans and other primates. However, the origin of HFOPs is unknown. Based on patterns of tracer coupling, we hypothesized that HFOPs could be generated, in part, by negative feedback from axon-bearing amacrine cells excited via electrical synapses with neighboring ganglion cells. Computer simulations were used to determine whether such axon-mediated feedback was consistent with the experimentally observed properties of HFOPs. (1) Periodic signals are typically absent from ganglion cell PSTHs, in part because the phases of retinal HFOPs vary randomly over time and are only weakly stimulus locked. In the retinal model, this phase variability resulted from the nonlinear properties of axon-mediated feedback in combination with synaptic noise. (2) HFOPs increase as a function of stimulus size up to several times the receptive-field center diameter. In the model, axon-mediated feedback pooled signals over a large retinal area, producing HFOPs that were similarly size dependent. (3) HFOPs are stimulus specific. In the model, gap junctions between neighboring neurons caused contiguous regions to become phase locked, but did not synchronize separate regions. Model-generated HFOPs were consistent with the receptive-field center dynamics and spatial organization of cat alpha cells. HFOPs did not depend qualitatively on the exact value of any model parameter or on the numerical precision of the integration method. We conclude that HFOPs could be mediated, in part, by circuitry consistent with known retinal anatomy.

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