Comparing noisy neural population dynamics using optimal transport distances

Fuente: arXiv
Enregistré dans:
Détails bibliographiques
Auteurs principaux: Nejatbakhsh, Amin, Geadah, Victor, Williams, Alex H., Lipshutz, David
Format: Preprint
Publié: 2024
Sujets:
Accès en ligne:
Tags: Ajouter un tag
Pas de tags, Soyez le premier à ajouter un tag!
_version_ 1866915071041470464
author Nejatbakhsh, Amin
Geadah, Victor
Williams, Alex H.
Lipshutz, David
author_facet Nejatbakhsh, Amin
Geadah, Victor
Williams, Alex H.
Lipshutz, David
contents Biological and artificial neural systems form high-dimensional neural representations that underpin their computational capabilities. Methods for quantifying geometric similarity in neural representations have become a popular tool for identifying computational principles that are potentially shared across neural systems. These methods generally assume that neural responses are deterministic and static. However, responses of biological systems, and some artificial systems, are noisy and dynamically unfold over time. Furthermore, these characteristics can have substantial influence on a system's computational capabilities. Here, we demonstrate that existing metrics can fail to capture key differences between neural systems with noisy dynamic responses. We then propose a metric for comparing the geometry of noisy neural trajectories, which can be derived as an optimal transport distance between Gaussian processes. We use the metric to compare models of neural responses in different regions of the motor system and to compare the dynamics of latent diffusion models for text-to-image synthesis.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2412_14421
institution arXiv
publishDate 2024
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Comparing noisy neural population dynamics using optimal transport distances
Nejatbakhsh, Amin
Geadah, Victor
Williams, Alex H.
Lipshutz, David
Neurons and Cognition
Machine Learning
Biological and artificial neural systems form high-dimensional neural representations that underpin their computational capabilities. Methods for quantifying geometric similarity in neural representations have become a popular tool for identifying computational principles that are potentially shared across neural systems. These methods generally assume that neural responses are deterministic and static. However, responses of biological systems, and some artificial systems, are noisy and dynamically unfold over time. Furthermore, these characteristics can have substantial influence on a system's computational capabilities. Here, we demonstrate that existing metrics can fail to capture key differences between neural systems with noisy dynamic responses. We then propose a metric for comparing the geometry of noisy neural trajectories, which can be derived as an optimal transport distance between Gaussian processes. We use the metric to compare models of neural responses in different regions of the motor system and to compare the dynamics of latent diffusion models for text-to-image synthesis.
title Comparing noisy neural population dynamics using optimal transport distances
topic Neurons and Cognition
Machine Learning
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2412.14421