Category Archives: Network analysis

Displaying the hippocampus as EM image on the office wall

One of the most amazing methods in modern neuroscience is dense volumetric electron microscopy of the brain. I have mentioned some openly accessible datasets before (see my previous blog post), but many additional datasets have been released since then – … Continue reading

Posted in Data analysis, hippocampus, Imaging, Microscopy, Network analysis, neuroscience | Tagged , | 3 Comments

Spike inference with GCaMP8: new pretrained models available

Calcium imaging is only an indirect readout of neuronal activity via fluorescence signals. To estimate the true underlying firing rates of these neurons, methods for “spike inference” have been developed. They are useful to denoise calcium imaging data and make … Continue reading

Posted in Calcium Imaging, Data analysis, Imaging, machine learning, Network analysis, Neuronal activity | Tagged , , , , | 4 Comments

Three recent interesting papers on computational neuroscience

Three papers:
1. The Neuron as a Direct Data-Driven Controller
2. A learning algorithm beyond backpropagation
3. Continuous vs. discrete representations in a recurrent network Continue reading

Posted in machine learning, Network analysis, Neuronal activity, neuroscience, Reviews, zebrafish | Tagged , , , , | 3 Comments

Two random but interesting papers on neurophysiology with behavior

Bagur, Bourg et al. (2022) from the Bathellier Lab in Paris make the interesting finding that the auditory code is represented as temporal sequences of neuronal activity in early auditory processing stages and as spatial patterns in auditory cortex. I … Continue reading

Posted in Brain machine interface, closed-loop, Data analysis, electrophysiology, hippocampus, machine learning, Network analysis, Neuronal activity, neuroscience, Reviews | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

Interesting papers on behavioral timescale synaptic plasticity (theory)

Behavioral timescale synaptic plasticity (BTSP) is a form of single-shot learning observed in hippocampal place cells in mice (Bittner et al., 2015, 2017). This finding is both interesting and inspiring for computational neuroscience for several reasons. In the first place, … Continue reading

Posted in Data analysis, machine learning, Network analysis, Neuronal activity, neuroscience, Reviews | Tagged , , , | 5 Comments

Interesting papers on behavioral timescale synaptic plasticity (experiments)

Behavioral timescale synaptic plasticity (BTSP) is a form of single-shot learning observed in hippocampal place cells in mice (Bittner et al., 2015, 2017). The idea is that post-synaptic activations (“eligibility traces”) are potentiated by a dendritic plateau potential/burst (“instructive signal”) … Continue reading

Posted in Calcium Imaging, Data analysis, electrophysiology, Network analysis, Neuronal activity, Reviews | Tagged , , , | 4 Comments

Annual report of my intuition about the brain (2022)

How does the brain work and how can we understand it? To view this big question from a broad perspective at the end of each year, I’m reporting some of the thoughts about the brain that marked me most during … Continue reading

Posted in electrophysiology, Network analysis, Neuronal activity, Review, Reviews | Tagged , , | 8 Comments

Post-publication review: The geometry of robustness in spiking neural networks

Selected paper: Calaim, Dehmelt, Gonçalves and Machens, The geometry of robustness in spiking neural networks, eLife (2022) The main message: This theoretical neuroscience paper describes an intuitive way how to think about the effect of single spikes in a network … Continue reading

Posted in Network analysis, Neuronal activity, Reviews | Tagged | Leave a comment

Annual report of my intuition about the brain (2021)

How does the brain work and how can we understand it? I want to make it a habit to report some of the thoughts about the brain that marked me most during the past twelve month at the end of … Continue reading

Posted in machine learning, Network analysis, Review | Tagged , , , | 8 Comments

Annual report of my intuition about the brain (2020)

How does the brain work and how can we understand it? I want to make it a habit to report some of the thoughts about the brain that marked me most during the past twelve month at the end of … Continue reading

Posted in Data analysis, machine learning, Network analysis, Neuronal activity, Reviews | Tagged , , , | 4 Comments