No Arabic abstract
Introduction- Identifying the potential firing patterns following different brain regions under normal and abnormal conditions increases our understanding of events at the level of neural interactions in the brain. The Izhikevich model is one of the simplest biologically plausible models, i.e. capable of capturing the most recognized firing patterns of neurons. This property makes the model efficient in simulating the large-scale networks of neurons. Improving the Izhikevich model for adapting to the neuronal activity of the rat brain with great accuracy would make the model effective for future neural network implementations. Methods- Data sampling from two brain regions, the HIP and BLA, was performed by the extracellular recordings of male rats, and spike sorting was conducted by Plexon offline sorter. Further analyses were performed through NeuroExplorer and MATLAB. To optimize the Izhikevich model parameters, a genetic algorithm was used. The process of comparison in each iteration leads to the survival of better populations until achieving the optimum solution. Results- In the present study, the possible firing patterns of the real single neurons of the HIP and BLA were identified. Additionally, an improved Izhikevich model was achieved. Accordingly, the real neuronal spiking pattern of these regions neurons and the corresponding cases of the Izhikevich neuron spiking pattern were adjusted with great accuracy. Conclusion- This study was conducted to elevate our knowledge of neural interactions in different structures of the brain and accelerate the quality of future large-scale neural network simulations, as well as reducing the modeling complexity. This aim was achievable by performing the improved Izhikevich model, and inserting only the plausible firing patterns, and eliminating unrealistic ones.
Developing electrophysiological recordings of brain neuronal activity and their analysis provide a basis for exploring the structure of brain function and nervous system investigation. The recorded signals are typically a combination of spikes and noise. High amounts of background noise and possibility of electric signaling recording from several neurons adjacent to the recording site have led scientists to develop neuronal signal processing tools such as spike sorting to facilitate brain data analysis. Spike sorting plays a pivotal role in understanding the electrophysiological activity of neuronal networks. This process prepares recorded data for interpretations of neurons interactions and understanding the overall structure of brain functions. Spike sorting consists of three steps: spike detection, feature extraction, and spike clustering. There are several methods to implement each of spike sorting steps. This paper provides a systematic comparison of various spike sorting sub-techniques applied to real extracellularly recorded data from a rat brain basolateral amygdala. An efficient sorted data resulted from careful choice of spike sorting sub-methods leads to better interpretation of the brain structures connectivity under different conditions, which is a very sensitive concept in diagnosis and treatment of neurological disorders. Here, spike detection is performed by appropriate choice of threshold level via three different approaches. Feature extraction is done through PCA and Kernel PCA methods, which Kernel PCA outperforms. We have applied four different algorithms for spike clustering including K-means, Fuzzy C-means, Bayesian and Fuzzy maximum likelihood estimation. As one requirement of most clustering algorithms, optimal number of clusters is achieved through validity indices for each method. Finally, the sorting results are evaluated using inter-spike interval histograms.
Individual locations of many neuronal cell bodies (>10^4) are needed to enable statistically significant measurements of spatial organization within the brain such as nearest-neighbor and microcolumnarity measurements. In this paper, we introduce an Automated Neuron Recognition Algorithm (ANRA) which obtains the (x,y) location of individual neurons within digitized images of Nissl-stained, 30 micron thick, frozen sections of the cerebral cortex of the Rhesus monkey. Identification of neurons within such Nissl-stained sections is inherently difficult due to the variability in neuron staining, the overlap of neurons, the presence of partial or damaged neurons at tissue surfaces, and the presence of non-neuron objects, such as glial cells, blood vessels, and random artifacts. To overcome these challenges and identify neurons, ANRA applies a combination of image segmentation and machine learning. The steps involve active contour segmentation to find outlines of potential neuron cell bodies followed by artificial neural network training using the segmentation properties (size, optical density, gyration, etc.) to distinguish between neuron and non-neuron segmentations. ANRA positively identifies 86[5]% neurons with 15[8]% error (mean[st.dev.]) on a wide range of Nissl-stained images, whereas semi-automatic methods obtain 80[7]%/17[12]%. A further advantage of ANRA is that it affords an unlimited increase in speed from semi-automatic methods, and is computationally efficient, with the ability to recognize ~100 neurons per minute using a standard personal computer. ANRA is amenable to analysis of huge photo-montages of Nissl-stained tissue, thereby opening the door to fast, efficient and quantitative analysis of vast stores of archival material that exist in laboratories and research collections around the world.
Excessively high, neural synchronisation has been associated with epileptic seizures, one of the most common brain diseases worldwide. A better understanding of neural synchronisation mechanisms can thus help control or even treat epilepsy. In this paper, we study neural synchronisation in a random network where nodes are neurons with excitatory and inhibitory synapses, and neural activity for each node is provided by the adaptive exponential integrate-and-fire model. In this framework, we verify that the decrease in the influence of inhibition can generate synchronisation originating from a pattern of desynchronised spikes. The transition from desynchronous spikes to synchronous bursts of activity, induced by varying the synaptic coupling, emerges in a hysteresis loop due to bistability where abnormal (excessively high synchronous) regimes exist. We verify that, for parameters in the bistability regime, a square current pulse can trigger excessively high (abnormal) synchronisation, a process that can reproduce features of epileptic seizures. Then, we show that it is possible to suppress such abnormal synchronisation by applying a small-amplitude external current on less than 10% of the neurons in the network. Our results demonstrate that external electrical stimulation not only can trigger synchronous behaviour, but more importantly, it can be used as a means to reduce abnormal synchronisation and thus, control or treat effectively epileptic seizures.
Polychronous neural groups are effective structures for the recognition of precise spike-timing patterns but the detection method is an inefficient multi-stage brute force process that works off-line on pre-recorded simulation data. This work presents a new model of polychronous patterns that can capture precise sequences of spikes directly in the neural simulation. In this scheme, each neuron is assigned a randomized code that is used to tag the post-synaptic neurons whenever a spike is transmitted. This creates a polychronous code that preserves the order of pre-synaptic activity and can be registered in a hash table when the post-synaptic neuron spikes. A polychronous code is a sub-component of a polychronous group that will occur, along with others, when the group is active. We demonstrate the representational and pattern recognition ability of polychronous codes on a direction selective visual task involving moving bars that is typical of a computation performed by simple cells in the cortex. The computational efficiency of the proposed algorithm far exceeds existing polychronous group detection methods and is well suited for online detection.
We study the stable phases of an attractor neural network model, with binary units, for hippocampal place cells encoding 1D or 2D spatial maps or environments. Using statistical mechanics tools we show that, below critical values for the noise in the neural response and for the number of environments, the network activity is spatially localized in one environment. We calculate the number of stored environments. For high noise and loads the network activity extends over space, either uniformly or with spatial heterogeneities due to the cross-talk between the maps, and memory of environments is lost. Analytical predictions are corroborated by numerical simulations.