Neurocomputing 32-33 (2000) 25-35

Characterization of activity oscillations in an excitable membrane model and their potential functionality for neuronal computations Davis Barch Graduate Program in Vision Science, University of California, Berkeley, 360 Minor Hall, Berkeley, CA, 94720-2020, USA Accepted 13 January 2000

Abstract A 2-dimensional excitable membrane can be implemented as an array of interconnected neural elements. After an initial burst of activity waves, the response of such a membrane to a continuous static input is largely confined to the input area, and manifests oscillations in unit activity levels. The parameters characterizing these oscillations are sensitive to certain input features, including input extent and granularity. These properties, and the phase relationships among input regions, may potentially be used to carry out multiple aspects of visual feature extraction and visually related neural computation.  2000 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved. Keywords: Oscillations; Excitable membranes; Feature extraction; Phase-locking; Neural models.

1. Introduction It has previously been demonstrated [4] that activity applied from an external source to an excitable membrane, implemented as a sheet of connected neural elements, can lead to traveling waves of activity, and that interactions of these waves can be used to model extraction and characterization of coherent motion signals by the primate visual system. It is demonstrated here that, in addition to travelling activity waves, persistent input to such an excitable membrane may also give rise to localized activity oscillations.

D. Barch / Neurocomputing 32-33 (2000) 25-35 The possibility of traveling activity waves in neural networks has been shown mathematically, and by simulation (see references cited in [4]), but is only rarely invoked in the modeling of biological systems. Oscillations in neural models, on the other hand, have been frequently described, and have been the subject of extensive analysis (see, for example, [2,3,5,6,9]). Such oscillations have been measured in cortical neurons in both monkey and cat (see [8,10], and the references therein), and there has been considerable recent interest in the periodic, synchronized firing patterns that occur in the gamma-frequency (20-80 Hz) range, and the activity oscillations that are believed to underlie this phenomenon. It has been proposed that phase relationships among the firing patterns of individual neurons may reflect the perceptual binding of the input features that give rise to the neuronal responses. It is not generally alleged, however, that the parameters of the underlying activity oscillations are themselves involved in perceptual coding. The results described here demonstrate that activity applied from an external source to a biologically plausible model of an array of connected neural elements gives rise to oscillations in the activity levels of these elements, and that the parameters characterizing these oscillations are sensitive to certain input features. The nature of such oscillations may therefore provide a cue that a visual system might use to help characterize its input. In addition, phase relationships among such oscillations may have functionality with regard to image segmentation, and can be used to model the above-mentioned correlations in cortical firing patterns.

2. Description of the model The model used here is identical to that described in [4]. It is an excitable membrane, implemented as a two-dimensional sheet of connected neural elements, laid out in a hexagonal array. Each unit is connected to all of its neighbors (6 nearest neighbors if the depth of connectivity is 1, 18 neighbors (6 at depth 1 plus 12 at depth 2) if the connectivity depth is 2, etc.) All connections are deterministic, and all connections are symmetric. Connection strength falls off with the square of the length of the connection and the units are linear threshold elements whose activities are bounded by upper and lower limits; for the results described here, the lower and upper limits on unit activity were 0 and 20 (arbitrary units). Unit activity levels, input levels, and output levels all have continuous, non-spiking values. Units are updated in synchronous fashion. Units may be thought to represent neurons or clusters of neurons for various applications. Unit activity at each time step is the activity at the previous time step after some exponential decay, plus the sum of the inputs to the unit multiplied by a synaptic efficiency factor introduced to minimize activity “bounce-back”, and to enforce propagation of activity away from its source. The activity of the unit at location (x,y) at time t + 1 is therefore given by A(x,y,t + 1) = A(x,y,t ) exp( − d ∆t ) + max[0, E(x,y,t ) I(x,y,t ) − T(t )],

(1)

D. Barch / Neurocomputing 32-33 (2000) 25-35 where A(x,y,t ) is the activity of the unit at position (x,y ) at time t; d is the decay rate for activity; ∆t is the length of each time step and defined to be 1; E(x,y,t ) is the "synaptic efficiency" for this unit at time t as determined by equation (2); and I(x,y,t ) is the sum of all inputs to this unit at time t (activity of neighboring units times connection strength to the unit in question, plus externally applied input). T(t ) is the threshold, which is the same for all units at time t, but may vary over time, though it is typically held constant. The synaptic efficiency factor is initially 1.00, is bounded by 0 and 1, and is determined at time t + 1 by the unit's activity and efficiency at time t. Efficiency at time t + 1 decreases with increasing activity at time t, but in the absence of activity, the efficiency regresses towards 1. The synaptic efficiency of the unit at location (x,y) at time t is described by E (x,y,t ) = {1 − [ (1 − E(x,y,t − 1)) exp(s1∆t )] } × exp[ (A(x,y,t − 1)/Amax) s 2 ∆t )],

(2)

where s1 is the exponent of recovery of the unit's synaptic efficiency, s2 determines the amount by which a unit's activity at time t − 1 reduces its synaptic efficiency at time I, Amax is the maximum possible activity, and ∆t is the length of a single time step (defined to be 1). In an alternative excitable membrane architecture, each unit described above is replaced by a cluster of integrate and fire elements. In such a network of spiking elements, activity waves are generated and propagated just as they are in the network of analogue units. The results described below, which have been generated using the analogue version of this model, are therefore also probably characteristic of twodimensional arrays of spiking elements.

3. Results 3.1. Continuous externally applied activity gives rise to activity oscillations In the excitable membrane model described here, an activity applied externally to a single unit or an extended area leads to an expanding annular activity wave. If this external activity is applied continuously, the synaptic efficiencies of the units around the input area may drop below that required to propagate additional activity waves. This implies that, even while the input area (plus a narrow margin around this area) may remain active, the activity in the input area may have little or no influence on the rest of the excitable membrane. The activity in the input area is typically not constant over time or space, but forms standing waves, bounded by a narrow margin surrounding the input area. These effects can be seen in Fig. 1. The relationships between the parameters characterizing the input, and those which characterize the membrane oscillations in response to this input, are not immediately obvious. One simple characterization of the membrane response is the temporal profile of the sum of the unit activities over the input area. This temporal profile is

D. Barch / Neurocomputing 32-33 (2000) 25-35

well matched by an exponential decay multiplied by a sine wave, to which a bias term (asymptotic activity level) is added. This function may be parameterized as SA(t ) = P 1 exp ( − P 2 t ) cos ((2π)P 3 t + P 4) + P 5

(3)

where SA(t ) is the summed activity over the input area a time t, P 1 is the amplitude of the activity oscillation, P 2 is its decay rate, P 3 is the oscillation frequency, P 4 the phase and P 5 the bias. This equation was fit to the temporal profile of the membrane activity (beginning at the nineteenth timestep following stimulus onset), using the Matlab Optimization toolbox (version 1.5.2). 3.2. Factors affecting oscillation parameters The results shown in Fig. 1 indicate an apparent spatial structure to the activity oscillations over an extended input region. It might be suspected, therefore, that the shape of the input region would have a significant effect on the parameters of these oscillations. A comparison of the five parameters of the model described above, for square, circular, and triangular input regions of the same area, however, reveals that the model parameters are almost entirely insensitive to shape (data not shown). The results seen in Fig. 2a, on the other hand, show that the aspect ratio of a rectangular input (of constant area) has a clear effect on the frequency (P 3) of the activity oscillations; it can be seen that the frequency is highest for the narrowest rectangles, and is at a minimum for the most balanced aspect (a square). Fig. 2b shows the effect of the amplitude of the external input on the oscillation frequency for rectangular inputs of constant area, for an excitable membrane with a depth of connectivity of 3. It can be seen that the oscillation frequency increases monotonically with amplitude of the externally applied input.

D. Barch / Neurocomputing 32-33 (2000) 25-35

D. Barch / Neurocomputing 32-33 (2000) 25-35 Fig. 2c shows the values of the oscillation frequency of the damped oscillation model, fit to the activity profiles arising from input areas of different extent, for excitable membranes with depths of connectivity of 1 (circles), 3 (squares) and 5 (diamonds). It can be seen that the oscillation frequency drops off systematically with input extent, and that this effect is virtually identical for membranes of different depths of connectivity. This effect is especially interesting in light of the observation, made earlier, that, following an initial burst of propagating activity waves, the synaptic efficiencies of the units around an input area may drop below that required to propagate additional activity waves. This implies that individual texture elements in an extended texture may induce areas of independently oscillating activities in the excitable membrane; this effect can be seen in Figs. 3a−d. The oscillation parameters of the summed activity over an extended texture will therefore be those of the individual texture elements. The size of the texture elements, and therefore texture granularity, can therefore be directly measured by summing the activity of all of the units in the extended texture, and measuring the frequency of the oscillation of this summed activity. Fig. 3e shows a comparison of the frequency of oscillations arising from

D. Barch / Neurocomputing 32-33 (2000) 25-35 rectangular input areas of different extents, and for extended textures of different granularities (that is, different sizes of texture elements, for textures of a constant extent and constant amount and intensity of externally applied activity.) It can be seen that, as predicted, the oscillation frequency of the unit activity, summed over the entire textured input region, is that of the individual texture elements. 3.3. Oscillations across an input area become phase-locked A detailed examination of the oscillations of the individual elements of an extended input area reveals that, despite the apparent spatial structure of the activity

D. Barch / Neurocomputing 32-33 (2000) 25-35 oscillations that can be seen in Figs. 1 and 3, the oscillations of the activity levels of all of the interior units within an input area are in temporal phase (although the units on the very borders of the input area oscillate slightly out of phase with the rest). The apparent spatial structure of the oscillations over an extended input region appears to be the result of differences in oscillation amplitudes. The phase relationships among the units of an extended input region are revealed in Fig. 4a, which shows the mean of all two-unit cross-correlations for an extended input region. The time of stimulus onset for each unit was selected randomly (at each timestep, for each unit, there was a 5% probability that input would be turned on for that unit; once input was applied to a given unit, it was applied at each timestep thereafter). Despite the range of stimulus onset times over the input region, thecross-correlation profile seen in Fig. 4a indicates that activity oscillations within a region are of a single frequency, and are phaselocked. Fig. 4b shows the mean of all inter-region cross-correlations for each pair of units selected from two separated input areas, each of which had the input regime described above. The two separated regions had a different mean time of stimulus onset; this correlation profile has the same peak width and frequency as that shown in 4a, but has a peak that is offset from 0 timesteps, indicating that the activity oscillations of the two regions are of the same frequency, but are out of phase. Fig. 4c shows a similar analysis for two contiguous input regions; this simulation was otherwise identical to that described for Fig. 4b. This correlation profile is identical to that seen in Fig. 4b, but has a peak at 0 timesteps. These results indicate that oscillation in contiguous regions tend to become phase-locked, solely by virtue of their contiguity. These results, combined with those shown in Fig. 2b, imply two counter-acting effects among contiguous input regions that receive external inputs of different amplitudes: oscillations among contiguous input regions tend to phase-lock, while oscillation frequency is sensitive to the amplitude of the external input. Fig. 5 shows the timecourse of the activity oscillations of four contiguous input regions, to each of

D. Barch / Neurocomputing 32-33 (2000) 25-35 which was applied a constant external input of a different mean amplitude: within a region each unit received a constant input of an amplitude selected from the same normal distribution; the means of these distributions varied from region to region. It can be seen that activity oscillations within a region tend to phase-lock, while those between regions tend to be out of phase.

4. Discussion Oscillations in neural models have been frequently described, and have been the subject of extensive analysis (see, for example, [2,3,5,6,9]). Whenever such an effect is seen in a model of a biological system, a number of questions need to be addressed: First, what are the characteristics of the effect? What is its possible functionality in the biological system? Then, what is the evidence that it occurs in a biological system? And finally, what is the evidence that the biological system in fact uses this effect for the purported functionality? The results described here characterize the following effects: (1) Continuous external input, applied to an excitable membrane implemented as a sheet of biologically plausible connected neural elements, can give rise to localized oscillations in the the activity levels of the neural elements in the input area; (2) The parameters characterizing these oscillations are relatively insensitive to the shape of the input area, given roughly equal aspect ratios; (3) The frequency of the activity oscillations is lowest for input areas of most balanced aspect ratio, for input areas of constant area and inputs of constant amplitude. (4) The frequency of the activity oscillations increases with amplitude of the externally applied input, for input areas of a constant area and aspect ratio. (5) The frequency of the activity oscillations decreases with increasing size of the input area, for input areas of constant aspect ratio and inputs of constant amplitude. (6) A side effect of the above is that the frequency of the oscillations of the activity summed over a texture decreases with the size of the texture elements. (7) Activity oscillations within an input area tend to phase-lock, while activity oscillations in contiguous input regions to which inputs of different mean amplitudes are applied can oscillate out of phase, and with different frequencies. This is by no means a complete characterization of the properties of these oscillations, nor are these properties necessarily independent. The frequency of the oscillation in the unit activities, summed over an input area (or considered individually, as the oscillations in a contiguous input region phaselock), might therefore be used by a visual system to characterize the input amplitude, aspect ratio, and extent of an input region. The results shown in Fig. 3 also indicate that frequency of oscillations in summed or individual unit activities can be used to characterize the size of the component elements of an extended texture. A neuron (for example), firing in phase with the oscillations in activity summed over an extended texture, would therefore have a firing rate that is a direct readout of the granularity of the texture; this extraction of a statistical property of the distribution of activity in the input to this system can be done without resorting to overt statistics, pixel-by-pixel analysis, or neuronal arithmetic.

D. Barch / Neurocomputing 32-33 (2000) 25-35 The results shown in Fig. 5 indicate that such activity oscillations may be involved in another realm of functionality: that of image segmentation. Neighboring input regions, receiving inputs selected from distributions with different mean amplitudes, spontaneously segregate from one another into regions oscillating with different phases and frequencies. This effect simultaneously groups elements receiving inputs selected from the same distribution, while segregating elements receiving inputs selected from different distributions, and augments the differences between them. This mechanism bears some similarity to the normalized-cut algorithms of Shi and Malik [7], which accomplish image segmentation by using similarities in pixel inputs to weight connections in a connected graph representation of an image. Extension of the excitable membrane model described here to include inter-unit connection strengths that vary with the similarity of the units’ tuning characteristics may allow use of additional input features (orientation, spatial frequency, and the like) to be used to accomplish image segmentation, and may indicate an additional functionality for lateral connections in the visual cortex. Biological evidence for the existence of oscillations in activity levels of cortical neurons is extensive, and has already been cited in the introduction. The effects of input extents on gamma-band oscillations in the hippocampus [9], and in the visual cortex [1], have been described, and agree with the results described here. Synchronization of oscillations over extended input areas, or over inputs that might be perceptually coupled, has been extensively described (see especially [8, 10]), and has been the subject of much recent attention. Evidence that biological systems characterize their inputs by virtue of the oscillation parameters resulting from these inputs is not yet available, and may be difficult to obtain. Evidence and speculation regarding the functionality of synchronized oscillations in the cortex has been abundant in recent years (see the references cited above). As mentioned above, it is alleged that neurons responding to input features that are perceptually linked have higher correlations in firing patterns (and therefore, presumably, in underlying oscillations in membrane potential) than do neurons responding to independent stimuli. The results reported here lend support to a general principle: that it is not necessarily the case that a visual system must extract and characterize input features, and perform visually related computations, by virtue of dedicated neural microcircuits, implementing an explicit algorithm for each subtask. It may rather be the case that the visual system might exploit some distributed response property of some more general-purpose neural architecture, capable of extracting and characterizing multiple input features simultaneously, and possibly with greater efficiency. The excitable membrane model described here may represent such a general-purpose architecture. References [1] R. Bauer, M. Brosch, R. Eckhorn, Different rules of spatial summation from beyond the receptive field for spike rates and oscillation amplitudes in cat visual cortex, Brain Res, 669 (2) (1995) 291- 297. [2] W. Gerstner, J.L. van Hemmen, J.D. Cowan, What matters in neuronal locking?, Neural Comput. 8 (8) (1996) 1653 – 1676.

D. Barch / Neurocomputing 32-33 (2000) 25-35 [3] W. Gerstner, Populations of Spiking Neurons, in: W. Maass, C. M. Bishop (Eds.), Pulsed neural networks, MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, 1999. [4] D.A. Glaser, D. Barch, Motion detection and characterization by an excitable membrane: the "Bow Wave" model, Neurocomputing 26-27 (1999) 137-146. [5] G.R. Jefferys, R.D. Traub, M.A. Whittington, Neuronal networks for induced '40Hz' rhythms, Trends Neurosci., 19 (5) (1996) 202-208. [6] R. Ritz, T.J. Sejnowski, Synchronous oscillatory activity in sensory systems: new vistas on mechanisms, Current Opinion Neurobiol 7 (4) (1997) 536-546. [7] J. Shi, J. Malik, Normalized cuts and image segmentation, in: Proceedings of the 1997 IEEE Computer Society Conference on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition, IEEE Comput. Soc, Los Alamitos, CA, USA, 1997 pp. 731-737. [8] W. Singer, C.M. Gray, Visual feature integration and the temporal correlation hypothesis, Ann. Rev. Neurosc. 18 (1995) 555-586. [9] R.D. Traub, M.A. Whittington, I.M. Stanford, J.G. Jefferys, A mechanism for generation of long-range synchronous fast oscillations in the cortex, Nature 383 (6601) (1996) 621-624. [10] W.M. Usrey, R.C. Reid, Synchronous activity in the visual system, Ann. Rev. Physiol. 61 (1999) 435-456.

Characterization of activity oscillations in an excitable ...

Continuous externally applied activity gives rise to activity oscillations. In the excitable membrane model described here, an activity applied externally to a single unit or an extended area leads to an expanding annular activity wave. If this external activity is applied continuously, the synaptic efficiencies of the units around.

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