Coin-Flipping In The Brain: Statistical Learning with Neuronal Assemblies

Fuente: arXiv
Gespeichert in:
Bibliographische Detailangaben
Hauptverfasser: Dabagia, Max, Mitropolsky, Daniel, Papadimitriou, Christos H., Vempala, Santosh S.
Format: Preprint
Veröffentlicht: 2024
Schlagworte:
Online-Zugang:
Tags: Tag hinzufügen
Keine Tags, Fügen Sie den ersten Tag hinzu!
_version_ 1866910482853527552
author Dabagia, Max
Mitropolsky, Daniel
Papadimitriou, Christos H.
Vempala, Santosh S.
author_facet Dabagia, Max
Mitropolsky, Daniel
Papadimitriou, Christos H.
Vempala, Santosh S.
contents How intelligence arises from the brain is a central problem in science. A crucial aspect of intelligence is dealing with uncertainty -- developing good predictions about one's environment, and converting these predictions into decisions. The brain itself seems to be noisy at many levels, from chemical processes which drive development and neuronal activity to trial variability of responses to stimuli. One hypothesis is that the noise inherent to the brain's mechanisms is used to sample from a model of the world and generate predictions. To test this hypothesis, we study the emergence of statistical learning in NEMO, a biologically plausible computational model of the brain based on stylized neurons and synapses, plasticity, and inhibition, and giving rise to assemblies -- a group of neurons whose coordinated firing is tantamount to recalling a location, concept, memory, or other primitive item of cognition. We show in theory and simulation that connections between assemblies record statistics, and ambient noise can be harnessed to make probabilistic choices between assemblies. This allows NEMO to create internal models such as Markov chains entirely from the presentation of sequences of stimuli. Our results provide a foundation for biologically plausible probabilistic computation, and add theoretical support to the hypothesis that noise is a useful component of the brain's mechanism for cognition.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2406_07715
institution arXiv
publishDate 2024
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Coin-Flipping In The Brain: Statistical Learning with Neuronal Assemblies
Dabagia, Max
Mitropolsky, Daniel
Papadimitriou, Christos H.
Vempala, Santosh S.
Neurons and Cognition
Neural and Evolutionary Computing
How intelligence arises from the brain is a central problem in science. A crucial aspect of intelligence is dealing with uncertainty -- developing good predictions about one's environment, and converting these predictions into decisions. The brain itself seems to be noisy at many levels, from chemical processes which drive development and neuronal activity to trial variability of responses to stimuli. One hypothesis is that the noise inherent to the brain's mechanisms is used to sample from a model of the world and generate predictions. To test this hypothesis, we study the emergence of statistical learning in NEMO, a biologically plausible computational model of the brain based on stylized neurons and synapses, plasticity, and inhibition, and giving rise to assemblies -- a group of neurons whose coordinated firing is tantamount to recalling a location, concept, memory, or other primitive item of cognition. We show in theory and simulation that connections between assemblies record statistics, and ambient noise can be harnessed to make probabilistic choices between assemblies. This allows NEMO to create internal models such as Markov chains entirely from the presentation of sequences of stimuli. Our results provide a foundation for biologically plausible probabilistic computation, and add theoretical support to the hypothesis that noise is a useful component of the brain's mechanism for cognition.
title Coin-Flipping In The Brain: Statistical Learning with Neuronal Assemblies
topic Neurons and Cognition
Neural and Evolutionary Computing
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2406.07715