How much information is associated with a particular stimulus?
How much information is associated with a particular stimulus?
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DOI：
10.1088/0954-898x/14/2/301
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发表时间：
2003-05-01
影响因子：
7.8
通讯作者：
Butts, DA
中科院分区：
文献类型：
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作者：
Butts, DA
虽然香农互信息可以用来揭示神经代码的一般特征，但它不能直接解决代码中哪些符号是重要的。通过使用特定于特定刺激或反应的信息测量可以获得进一步的洞察力。特定信息是先前提出的与特定响应相关的信息量的度量；然而，正如我所展示的，它并没有正确描述与特定刺激相关的信息量。相反，我提出了一种新的衡量标准：刺激特定信息（SSI），定义为在存在特定刺激的情况下反应的平均特定信息。与其他信息论测量一样，SSI 不依赖于神经代码的假设，并且对系统的非线性具有鲁棒性。为了证明其适用性，SSI 应用于来自模拟视觉神经元的数据，并识别与神经元的线性内核一致的刺激。虽然 SSI 揭示了视觉神经元的基本线性，但它还成功地识别了线性分析技术失败的修改示例中编码良好的刺激。因此，我证明 SSI 是对与特定刺激相关的信息的适当测量，并提供了一种新的无偏差方法来分析神经代码的重要刺激。
Although the Shannon mutual information can be used to reveal general features of the neural code, it cannot directly address which symbols of the code are significant. Further insight can be gained by using information measures that are specific to particular stimuli or responses. The specific information is a previously proposed measure of the amount of information associated with a particular response; however, as I show, it does not properly characterize the amount of information associated with particular stimuli. Instead, I propose a new measure: the stimulus-specific information (SSI), defined to be the average specific information of responses given the presence of a particular stimulus. Like other information theoretic measures, the SSI does not rely on assumptions about the neural code, and is robust to non-linearities of the system. To demonstrate its applicability, the SSI is applied to data from simulated visual neurons, and identifies stimuli consistent with the neuron's linear kernel. While the SSI reveals the essential linearity of the visual neurons, it also successfully identifies the well-encoded stimuli in a modified example where linear analysis techniques fail. Thus, I demonstrate that the SSI is an appropriate measure of the information associated with particular stimuli, and provides a new unbiased method of analysing the significant stimuli of a neural code.