Biology subjects

Opper, M.

Publications and source records attributed to Opper, M..

2 recordsLinked to original sources

bioRxiv2020

A Mathematical Model of Exploration and Exploitation in Natural Scene Viewing

Understanding the decision process underlying gaze control is an important question in cognitive neuroscience with applications in diverse fields ranging from psychology to computer vision. The decision for choosing an upcoming saccade target can be framed as a dilemma: Should the observer further exploit the information near the current gaze position or continue with exploration of other patches within the given scene? While several models attempt to describe the dynamics of saccade target selection, none of them explicitly addresses the underlying Exploration-Exploitation dilemma. Here we propose and investigate a mathematical model motivated by the Exploration-Exploitation dilemma in scene viewing. The model is derived from a minimal set of assumptions that generates realistic eye movement behavior. We implemented a Bayesian approach for model parameter inference based on the models likelihood function. In order to simplify the inference, we applied data augmentation methods that allowed the use of conjugate priors and the construction of an efficient Gibbs sampler. This approach turned out to be numerically efficient and permitted fitting interindividual differences in saccade statistics. Thus, the main contribution of our modeling approach is two-fold; first, we propose a new model for saccade generation in scene viewing. Second, we demonstrate the use of novel methods from Bayesian inference in the field of scan path modeling. Author summaryThe Exploration-Exploitation dilemma is general concept that has been investigated in human information processing. We investigate whether the Exploration-Exploitation trade-off is a viable approach to model sequences of fixations generated by a human observer in a free viewing task with natural scenes. Variants of the basic model are used to predict to the experimental data based on Bayesian inference. Results indicate a high predictive power for both aggregated data and individual differences across observers. The combination of a novel model with state-of-the-art Bayesian methods lends support to the Exploration-Exploitation framework in the field of eye-movement research.

neuroscience↗

bioRxiv2019

Inferring the collective dynamics of neuronal populations from single-trial spike trains using mechanistic models

Multi-neuronal spike-train data recorded in vivo often exhibit rich dynamics as well as considerable variability across cells and repetitions of identical experimental conditions (trials). Efforts to characterize and predict the population dynamics and the contributions of individual neurons require model-based tools. Abstract statistical models allow for principled parameter estimation and model selection, but possess only limited interpretive power because they typically do not incorporate prior biophysical constraints. Here we present a statistically principled approach based on a population of doubly-stochastic integrate-and-fire neurons, taking into account basic biophysics. This model class comprises an idealized description for the dynamics of the neuronal membrane voltage in response to fast independent and slower shared input fluctuations. To efficiently estimate the model parameters and compare different model variants we compute the likelihood of observed single-trail spike trains by leveraging analytical methods for spiking neuron models combined with inference techniques for hidden Markov models. This allows us to reconstruct the shared input variations, classify their dynamics, obtain precise spike rate estimates, and quantify how individual neurons couple to the low-dimensional overall population dynamics, all from a single trial. Extensive evaluations based on simulated data show that our method correctly identifies the dynamics of the shared input process and accurately estimates the model parameters. Validations on ground truth recordings of neurons in vitro demonstrate that our approach successfully reconstructs the dynamics of hidden inputs and yields improved fits compared to a typical phenomenological model. Finally, we apply the method to a neuronal population recorded in vivo, for which we assess the contributions of individual neurons to the overall spiking dynamics. Altogether, our work provides statistical inference tools for a class of reasonably constrained, mechanistic models and demonstrates the benefits of this approach to analyze measured spike train data.

neuroscience↗