How to measure the information gained from one symbol.
How to measure the information gained from one symbol.
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DOI：
10.1088/0954-898x_10_4_303
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发表时间：
1999-11
期刊：
影响因子：
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通讯作者：
Michael R. DeWeese;Markus Meister
中科院分区：
文献类型：
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作者：
Michael R. DeWeese;Markus Meister
信息理论提供了一个强大的框架来分析神经元如何表现感官刺激或其他行为变量。一个反复出现的问题是关于特定神经元反应所传达的信息量。在这里，我们表明，这个量的常用定义有一个严重的缺陷：在随后的神经活动观察中积累的信息不能加性地组合。可加性是一个非常理想的性质，无论是在理论基础上还是在分析人口代码的实际目的上。我们对每次观测的信息提出了另一种度量，并证明了这是满足可加性的唯一定义。旧的和新的定义测量了神经编码的不同方面，这可以用灵长类动物皮层中运动敏感神经元的视觉反应来说明。我们的分析允许对几个已发表的结果进行额外的解释，这些结果表明，所研究的神经元的操作远远超出了它们的信息能力。
Information theory provides a powerful framework to analyse how neurons represent sensory stimuli or other behavioural variables. A recurring question regards the amount of information conveyed by a specific neuronal response. Here we show that the commonly used definition for this quantity has a serious flaw: the information accumulated during subsequent observations of neural activity fails to combine additively. Additivity is a highly desirable property, both on theoretical grounds and for the practical purpose of analysing population codes. We propose an alternative measure for the information per observation and prove that this is the only definition that satisfies additivity. The old and the new definitions measure very different aspects of the neural code, which is illustrated with visual responses from a motion-sensitive neuron in the primate cortex. Our analysis allows additional interpretation of several published results, which suggests that the neurons studied are operating far from their information capacity.