Dynamic model of the dLGN push-pull circuitry

  • Authors:

  • Rubén Ferreiroa;Eduardo Sánchez;Luis Martínez

  • Affiliations:

  • Grupo de Sistemas Intelixentes, Departamento de Electrónica e Computación, Universidade de Santiago de Compostela, Santiago de Compostela, Spain;Grupo de Sistemas Intelixentes, Departamento de Electrónica e Computación, Universidade de Santiago de Compostela, Santiago de Compostela, Spain;Visual Neuroscience, Instituto de Neurociencias de Alicante, Alicante, Spain

  • Venue:
  • IWINAC'11 Proceedings of the 4th international conference on Interplay between natural and artificial computation - Volume Part I
  • Year:
  • 2011

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Abstract

In the present work we propose a dynamic model of the lateral geniculate nucleus (dLGN) that allows the implementation of different configurations of the push-pull circuitry in order to study the spatio-temporal filtering being carried out. It is widely accepted that each relay neuron receives only one input from a single retinal ganglion cell, which leads to interpret that the thalamus preserves the retinal structure of the receptive field and thus works as a simple relay station. We believe that this assumption is not fully valid and the thalamus could perform a more relevant processing of information through its complex push-pull circuitry. To test this hypothesis, a computational model was developed with a wiring configuration (convergence/divergence) between the retina and the dLGN based on experimental evidences, and a realistic description of the ON and OFF channels of dLGN. We found that this configuration may help improve the contrast of a stimulus by increasing its synaptic weight on higher frequencies.