arXiv subjects

Erik De Schutter

Publications and source records attributed to Erik De Schutter.

3 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2022

Self-configuring feedback loops for sensorimotor control

How dynamic interactions between nervous system regions in mammals performs online motor control remains an unsolved problem. In this paper we show that feedback control is a simple, yet powerful way to understand the neural dynamics of sensorimotor control. We make our case using a minimal model comprising spinal cord, sensory and motor cortex, coupled by long connections that are plastic. It succeeds in learning how to perform reaching movements of a planar arm with 6 muscles in several directions from scratch. The model satisfies biological plausibility constraints, like neural implementation, transmission delays, local synaptic learning and continuous online learning. Using differential Hebbian plasticity the model can go from motor babbling to reaching arbitrary targets in less than 10 minutes of in silico time. Moreover, independently of the learning mechanism, properly configured feedback control has many emergent properties: neural populations in motor cortex show directional tuning and oscillatory dynamics, the spinal cord creates convergent force fields that add linearly, and movements are ataxic (as in a motor system without a cerebellum).

q-bio.NC↗

arXiv2020

Lamina-specific neuronal properties promote robust, stable signal propagation in feedforward networks

Feedforward networks (FFN) are ubiquitous structures in neural systems and have been studied to understand mechanisms of reliable signal and information transmission. In many FFNs, neurons in one layer have intrinsic properties that are distinct from those in their pre-/postsynaptic layers, but how this affects network-level information processing remains unexplored. Here we show that layer-to-layer heterogeneity arising from lamina-specific cellular properties facilitates signal and information transmission in FFNs. Specifically, we found that signal transformations, made by each layer of neurons on an input-driven spike signal, demodulate signal distortions introduced by preceding layers. This mechanism boosts information transfer carried by a propagating spike signal and thereby supports reliable spike signal and information transmission in a deep FFN. Our study suggests that distinct cell types in neural circuits, performing different computational functions, facilitate information processing on the whole.

q-bio.NC↗

arXiv2016

Parallel STEPS: Large Scale Stochastic Spatial Reaction-Diffusion Simulation with High Performance Computers

Stochastic, spatial reaction-diffusion simulations have been widely used in systems biology and computational neuroscience. However, the increasing scale and complexity of simulated models and morphologies have exceeded the capacity of any serial implementation. This led to development of parallel solutions that benefit from the boost in performance of modern large-scale supercomputers. In this paper, we describe an MPI-based, parallel Operator-Splitting implementation for stochastic spatial reaction-diffusion simulations with irregular tetrahedral meshes. The performance of our implementation is first examined and analyzed with simulations of a simple model. We then demonstrate its usage in real-world research by simulating the reaction-diffusion components of a published calcium burst model in both Purkinje neuron sub-branch and full dendrite morphologies. Simulation results indicate that our implementation is capable of achieving super-linear speedup for balanced loading simulations with reasonable molecule density and mesh quality. In the best scenario a parallel simulation with 2000 processes achieves more than 3600 times of speedup relative to its serial SSA counterpart and more than 20 times of speedup relative to parallel simulation with 100 processes. While simulation performance is affected by unbalanced loading, a substantial speedup can still be observed without any special treatment.

q-bio.QM↗