TY - JOUR AB - Recent work emphasizes that the maximum entropy principle provides a bridge between statistical mechanics models for collective behavior in neural networks and experiments on networks of real neurons. Most of this work has focused on capturing the measured correlations among pairs of neurons. Here we suggest an alternative, constructing models that are consistent with the distribution of global network activity, i.e. the probability that K out of N cells in the network generate action potentials in the same small time bin. The inverse problem that we need to solve in constructing the model is analytically tractable, and provides a natural 'thermodynamics' for the network in the limit of large N. We analyze the responses of neurons in a small patch of the retina to naturalistic stimuli, and find that the implied thermodynamics is very close to an unusual critical point, in which the entropy (in proper units) is exactly equal to the energy. © 2013 IOP Publishing Ltd and SISSA Medialab srl. AU - Tkacik, Gasper AU - Marre, Olivier AU - Mora, Thierry AU - Amodei, Dario AU - Berry, Michael AU - Bialek, William ID - 2850 IS - 3 JF - Journal of Statistical Mechanics Theory and Experiment TI - The simplest maximum entropy model for collective behavior in a neural network VL - 2013 ER - TY - JOUR AB - The number of possible activity patterns in a population of neurons grows exponentially with the size of the population. Typical experiments explore only a tiny fraction of the large space of possible activity patterns in the case of populations with more than 10 or 20 neurons. It is thus impossible, in this undersampled regime, to estimate the probabilities with which most of the activity patterns occur. As a result, the corresponding entropy - which is a measure of the computational power of the neural population - cannot be estimated directly. We propose a simple scheme for estimating the entropy in the undersampled regime, which bounds its value from both below and above. The lower bound is the usual 'naive' entropy of the experimental frequencies. The upper bound results from a hybrid approximation of the entropy which makes use of the naive estimate, a maximum entropy fit, and a coverage adjustment. We apply our simple scheme to artificial data, in order to check their accuracy; we also compare its performance to those of several previously defined entropy estimators. We then apply it to actual measurements of neural activity in populations with up to 100 cells. Finally, we discuss the similarities and differences between the proposed simple estimation scheme and various earlier methods. © 2013 IOP Publishing Ltd and SISSA Medialab srl. AU - Berry, Michael AU - Tkacik, Gasper AU - Dubuis, Julien AU - Marre, Olivier AU - Da Silveira, Ravá ID - 2851 IS - 3 JF - Journal of Statistical Mechanics Theory and Experiment TI - A simple method for estimating the entropy of neural activity VL - 2013 ER - TY - JOUR AB - In the vibrant field of optogenetics, optics and genetic targeting are combined to commandeer cellular functions, such as the neuronal action potential, by optically stimulating light-sensitive ion channels expressed in the cell membrane. One broadly applicable manifestation of this approach are covalently attached photochromic tethered ligands (PTLs) that allow activating ligand-gated ion channels with outstanding spatial and temporal resolution. Here, we describe all steps towards the successful development and application of PTL-gated ion channels in cell lines and primary cells. The basis for these experiments forms a combination of molecular modeling, genetic engineering, cell culture, and electrophysiology. The light-gated glutamate receptor (LiGluR), which consists of the PTL-functionalized GluK2 receptor, serves as a model. AU - Szobota, Stephanie AU - Mckenzie, Catherine AU - Janovjak, Harald L ID - 2857 JF - Methods in Molecular Biology TI - Optical control of ligand-gated ion channels VL - 998 ER - TY - JOUR AB - In the hippocampus, cell assemblies forming mnemonic representations of space are thought to arise as a result of changes in functional connections of pyramidal cells. We have found that CA1 interneuron circuits are also reconfigured during goal-oriented spatial learning through modification of inputs from pyramidal cells. As learning progressed, new pyramidal assemblies expressed in theta cycles alternated with previously established ones, and eventually overtook them. The firing patterns of interneurons developed a relationship to new, learning-related assemblies: some interneurons associated their activity with new pyramidal assemblies while some others dissociated from them. These firing associations were explained by changes in the weight of monosynaptic inputs received by interneurons from new pyramidal assemblies, as these predicted the associational changes. Spatial learning thus engages circuit modifications in the hippocampus that incorporate a redistribution of inhibitory activity that might assist in the segregation of competing pyramidal cell assembly patterns in space and time. AU - Dupret, David AU - O'Neill, Joseph AU - Csicsvari, Jozsef L ID - 2860 IS - 1 JF - Neuron TI - Dynamic reconfiguration of hippocampal interneuron circuits during spatial learning VL - 78 ER - TY - JOUR AB - Genomic imprinting leads to preferred expression of either the maternal or paternal alleles of a subset of genes. Imprinting is essential for mammalian development, and its deregulation causes many diseases. However, the functional relevance of imprinting at the cellular level is poorly understood for most imprinted genes. We used mosaic analysis with double markers (MADM) in mice to create uniparental disomies (UPDs) and to visualize imprinting effects with single-cell resolution. Although chromosome 12 UPD did not produce detectable phenotypes, chromosome 7 UPD caused highly significant paternal growth dominance in the liver and lung, but not in the brain or heart. A single gene on chromosome 7, encoding the secreted insulin-like growth factor 2 (IGF2), accounts for most of the paternal dominance effect. Mosaic analyses implied additional imprinted loci on chromosome 7 acting cell autonomously to transmit the IGF2 signal. Our study reveals chromosome- and cell-type specificity of genomic imprinting effects. AU - Hippenmeyer, Simon AU - Johnson, Randy AU - Luo, Liqun ID - 2855 IS - 3 JF - Cell Reports TI - Mosaic analysis with double markers reveals cell type specific paternal growth dominance VL - 3 ER - TY - JOUR AB - G protein–coupled receptors (GPCRs), the largest family of membrane signaling proteins, respond to neurotransmitters, hormones and small environmental molecules. The neuronal function of many GPCRs has been difficult to resolve because of an inability to gate them with subtype specificity, spatial precision, speed and reversibility. To address this, we developed an approach for opto-chemical engineering of native GPCRs. We applied this to the metabotropic glutamate receptors (mGluRs) to generate light-agonized and light-antagonized mGluRs (LimGluRs). The light-agonized LimGluR2, on which we focused, was fast, bistable and supported multiple rounds of on/off switching. Light gated two of the primary neuronal functions of mGluR2: suppression of excitability and inhibition of neurotransmitter release. We found that the light-antagonized tool LimGluR2-block was able to manipulate negative feedback of synaptically released glutamate on transmitter release. We generalized the optical control to two additional family members: mGluR3 and mGluR6. This system worked in rodent brain slices and in zebrafish in vivo, where we found that mGluR2 modulated the threshold for escape behavior. These light-gated mGluRs pave the way for determining the roles of mGluRs in synaptic plasticity, memory and disease. AU - Levitz, Joshua AU - Pantoja, Carlos AU - Gaub, Benjamin AU - Janovjak, Harald L AU - Reiner, Andreas AU - Hoagland, Adam AU - Schoppik, David AU - Kane, Brian AU - Stawski, Philipp AU - Schier, Alexander AU - Trauner, Dirk AU - Isacoff, Ehud ID - 2856 JF - Nature Neuroscience TI - Optical control of metabotropic glutamate receptors VL - 16 ER - TY - JOUR AB - Given a continuous function f:X-R on a topological space, we consider the preimages of intervals and their homology groups and show how to read the ranks of these groups from the extended persistence diagram of f. In addition, we quantify the robustness of the homology classes under perturbations of f using well groups, and we show how to read the ranks of these groups from the same extended persistence diagram. The special case X=R3 has ramifications in the fields of medical imaging and scientific visualization. AU - Bendich, Paul AU - Edelsbrunner, Herbert AU - Morozov, Dmitriy AU - Patel, Amit ID - 2859 IS - 1 JF - Homology, Homotopy and Applications TI - Homology and robustness of level and interlevel sets VL - 15 ER - TY - JOUR AB - Neural populations encode information about their stimulus in a collective fashion, by joint activity patterns of spiking and silence. A full account of this mapping from stimulus to neural activity is given by the conditional probability distribution over neural codewords given the sensory input. For large populations, direct sampling of these distributions is impossible, and so we must rely on constructing appropriate models. We show here that in a population of 100 retinal ganglion cells in the salamander retina responding to temporal white-noise stimuli, dependencies between cells play an important encoding role. We introduce the stimulus-dependent maximum entropy (SDME) model—a minimal extension of the canonical linear-nonlinear model of a single neuron, to a pairwise-coupled neural population. We find that the SDME model gives a more accurate account of single cell responses and in particular significantly outperforms uncoupled models in reproducing the distributions of population codewords emitted in response to a stimulus. We show how the SDME model, in conjunction with static maximum entropy models of population vocabulary, can be used to estimate information-theoretic quantities like average surprise and information transmission in a neural population. AU - Granot Atedgi, Einat AU - Tkacik, Gasper AU - Segev, Ronen AU - Schneidman, Elad ID - 2863 IS - 3 JF - PLoS Computational Biology TI - Stimulus-dependent maximum entropy models of neural population codes VL - 9 ER - TY - JOUR AB - Motile cilia perform crucial functions during embryonic development and throughout adult life. Development of organs containing motile cilia involves regulation of cilia formation (ciliogenesis) and formation of a luminal space (lumenogenesis) in which cilia generate fluid flows. Control of ciliogenesis and lumenogenesis is not yet fully understood, and it remains unclear whether these processes are coupled. In the zebrafish embryo, lethal giant larvae 2 (lgl2) is expressed prominently in ciliated organs. Lgl proteins are involved in establishing cell polarity and have been implicated in vesicle trafficking. Here, we identified a role for Lgl2 in development of ciliated epithelia in Kupffer's vesicle, which directs left-right asymmetry of the embryo; the otic vesicles, which give rise to the inner ear; and the pronephric ducts of the kidney. Using Kupffer's vesicle as a model ciliated organ, we found that depletion of Lgl2 disrupted lumen formation and reduced cilia number and length. Immunofluorescence and time-lapse imaging of Kupffer's vesicle morphogenesis in Lgl2-deficient embryos suggested cell adhesion defects and revealed loss of the adherens junction component E-cadherin at lateral membranes. Genetic interaction experiments indicate that Lgl2 interacts with Rab11a to regulate E-cadherin and mediate lumen formation that is uncoupled from cilia formation. These results uncover new roles and interactions for Lgl2 that are crucial for both lumenogenesis and ciliogenesis and indicate that these processes are genetically separable in zebrafish. AU - Tay, Hwee AU - Schulze, Sabrina AU - Compagnon, Julien AU - Foley, Fiona AU - Heisenberg, Carl-Philipp J AU - Yost, H Joseph AU - Abdelilah Seyfried, Salim AU - Amack, Jeffrey ID - 2862 IS - 7 JF - Development TI - Lethal giant larvae 2 regulates development of the ciliated organ Kupffer’s vesicle VL - 140 ER - TY - JOUR AB - We consider a two-parameter family of piecewise linear maps in which the moduli of the two slopes take different values. We provide numerical evidence of the existence of some parameter regions in which the Lyapunov exponent and the topological entropy remain constant. Analytical proof of this phenomenon is also given for certain cases. Surprisingly however, the systems with that property are not conjugate as we prove by using kneading theory. AU - Botella Soler, Vicente AU - Oteo, José AU - Ros, Javier AU - Glendinning, Paul ID - 2861 IS - 12 JF - Journal of Physics A: Mathematical and Theoretical TI - Lyapunov exponent and topological entropy plateaus in piecewise linear maps VL - 46 ER -