Publications related to Towards a theory of cortical columns: From spiking neurons to interacting neural populations of finite size

Related publications (30)

Feature-based encoding of face identity by single neurons in the human amygdala and hippocampus

Neurons in the human amygdala and hippocampus are classically thought to encode a person’s identity invariant to visual features. However, it remains largely unknown how visual information from higher visual cortical areas is translated into such a semanti ...

2025

Emergent Rate-Based Dynamics in Duplicate-Free Populations of Spiking Neurons

Wulfram Gerstner, Johanni Michael Brea, Valentin Marc Schmutz

Can spiking neural networks (SNNs) approximate the dynamics of recurrent neural networks? Arguments in classical mean-field theory based on laws of large numbers provide a positive answer when each neuron in the network has many “duplicates”, i.e., other n ...

American Physical Society (APS)2025

How Gradient Descent Balances Features: A Dynamical Analysis For Two-Layer Neural Networks

Volkan Cevher, Fanghui Liu, Zhenyu Zhu

This paper investigates the fundamental regression task of learning k neurons (a.k.a. teachers) from Gaussian input, using two-layer ReLU neural networks with width m (a.k.a. students) and m, k = O(1), trained via gradient descent under proper initializati ...

2025

Eflop: a Sparsity-aware Metric for Evaluating Computational Cost in Spiking and Non-spiking Neural Networks

Liza Carol Andrea Dunbar

Deploying energy-efficient deep neural networks on energy-constrained edge devices is an important research topic in both machine learning and circuit design communities. Both artificial neural networks (ANNs) and spiking neural networks (SNNs) have been p ...

IOP Publishing Ltd2025

Context selectivity with dynamic availability enables lifelong continual learning

Wulfram Gerstner, Guillaume Emmanuel Fernand Bellec, Martin Louis Lucien Rémy Barry

“You never forget how to ride a bike”, – but how is that possible? The brain is able to learn complex skills, stop the practice for years, learn other skills in between, and still retrieve the original knowledge when necessary. The mechanisms of this capab ...

Elsevier BV2025

Task-driven neural network models predict neural dynamics of proprioception: Neural network model weights

Alexander Mathis, Alberto Silvio Chiappa, Alessandro Marin Vargas, Axel Bisi

Proprioception tells the brain the state of the body based on distributed sensors in the body. However, the principles that govern proprioceptive processing from those distributed sensors are poorly understood. Here, we employ a task-driven neural network ...

Zenodo2024

Subcortical correlates of consciousness with human single neuron recordings

Olaf Blanke, Fosco Bernasconi, Nathan Quentin Faivre, Michael Eric Anthony Pereira

Subcortical brain structures such as the basal ganglia or the thalamus are involved in regulating motor and cognitive behavior. However, their contribution to perceptual consciousness is still unclear, due to the inherent difficulties of recording subcorti ...

2024

Driving and suppressing the human language network using large language models

Martin Schrimpf

Transformer models such as GPT generate human-like language and are predictive of human brain responses to language. Here, using functional-MRI-measured brain responses to 1,000 diverse sentences, we first show that a GPT-based encoding model can predict t ...

Nature Portfolio2024

Predicting Visual Stimuli From Cortical Response Recorded With Wide-Field Imaging in a Mouse

Silvestro Micera

Neural decoding of the visual system is a subject of research interest, both to understand how the visual system works and to be able to use this knowledge in areas, such as computer vision or brain-computer interfaces. Spike-based decoding is often used, ...

Ieee-Inst Electrical Electronics Engineers Inc2024

Fast adaptation to rule switching using neuronal surprise

Wulfram Gerstner, Martin Louis Lucien Rémy Barry

In humans and animals, surprise is a physiological reaction to an unexpected event, but how surprise can be linked to plausible models of neuronal activity is an open problem. We propose a self-supervised spiking neural network model where a surprise signa ...

2024

Infusing structured knowledge priors in neural models for sample-efficient symbolic reasoning

Mattia Atzeni

The ability to reason, plan and solve highly abstract problems is a hallmark of human intelligence. Recent advancements in artificial intelligence, propelled by deep neural networks, have revolutionized disciplines like computer vision and natural language ...

EPFL2024

The neural correlates of topographical disorientation-a lesion analysis study

Olaf Blanke, Lukas Heydrich, Eva Blondiaux

Topographical disorientation refers to the selective inability to orient oneself in familiar surroundings. However, to date its neural correlates remain poorly understood. Here we use quantitative lesion analysis and a lesion network mapping approach in or ...

Wiley2024

Small-scale robotic devices for medical interventions in the brain

Mahmut Selman Sakar, Lorenzo Francesco John Noseda

This article summarizes the recent advancements in the design, fabrication, and control of microrobotic devices for the diagnosis and treatment of brain disorders. With a focus on diverse actuation methods, we discuss how advancements in materials science ...

2024

Unraveling behavior and cortical signals to guide the development of soft neuroprostheses for auditory restoration and spreading depolarization

Emilie Cornelia Maria Revol

Neuroprostheses have been used clinically for decades, to help restore or preserve brain functions, when pharmaceutical treatments are inefficient. Although great progress in the field has been made over the years to interface with the nervous system, surf ...

EPFL2024

Biophysically accurate and machine learning-based surrogate models to optimize neuroprosthesis design and operation

Simone Romeni

Electrical stimulation of the nervous system has emerged as a promising assistive technology in case of many injuries and illnesses across various parts of the nervous system. In particular, the invasive neuromodulation of the peripheral nervous system see ...

EPFL2024

Non-invasive stimulation of the human striatum disrupts reinforcement learning of motor skills

Friedhelm Christoph Hummel, Takuya Morishita, Maximilian Jonas Wessel, Elena Beanato, Traian Popa, Pierre Theopistos Vassiliadis, Fabienne Windel, Esra Neufeld

Reinforcement feedback can improve motor learning, but the underlying brain mechanisms remain underexplored. In particular, the causal contribution of specific patterns of oscillatory activity within the human striatum is unknown. To address this question, ...

Nature Portfolio2024

33.3 MiBMI: A 192/512-Channel 2.46mm² Miniaturized Brain-Machine Interface Chipset Enabling 31-Class Brain-to-Text Conversion Through Distinctive Neural Codes

Mahsa Shoaran, Uisub Shin, Mohammad Ali Shaeri, Amitabh Yadav

Recently, cutting-edge brain-machine interfaces (BMIs) have revealed the potential of decoders such as recurrent neural networks (RNNs) in predicting attempted handwriting [1] or speech [2], enabling rapid communication recovery after paralysis. However, c ...

IEEE2024

Modeling, fabrication and validation of 3D neural interfaces for peripheral nerves and brain organoids

Outman Akouissi

This thesis presents an extensive exploration of neuroelectronic interfaces, focusing on microfabrication, in silico modeling, and their applications in designing and fabricating devices for neural interfacing. The research encompasses both peripheral nerv ...

EPFL2024

Reduced Training Data for Laser Ultrasound Signal Interpretation by Neural Networks

Romain Christophe Rémy Fleury, Janez Rus

The performance of machine learning algorithms is conditioned by the availability of training datasets, which is especially true for the field of nondestructive evaluation. Here we propose one reconfigurable specimen instead of numerous reference specimens ...

2024

Mitigating Object Dependencies: Improving Point Cloud Self-Supervised Learning through Object Exchange

Sabine Süsstrunk, Mathieu Salzmann, Tong Zhang

In the realm of point cloud scene understanding, particularly in indoor scenes, objects are arranged following human habits, resulting in objects of certain semantics being closely positioned and displaying notable inter-object correlations. This can creat ...

2024