In the last lecture we talked about brain

maps, a kind of representation of sensory

information.
In this lecture I'm going to talk about a
different
way of encoding information, a method
called a brain meter.
In a brain meter, the amount of neural
activity is the critical variable that can
encode information.
The characteristic response patterns of
neurons that form a
meter are quite different from those that
form a map.
So in neurons that are part of a
map, the characteristic response function
is something like this.
Something that has a peak to it.
A best response that occurs for some
particular stimulus parameter and reduced
activity for any stimulus parameter that's
different from that best parameter.
And across the population you see that
there other neurons that are
tuned for different values of that
stimulus parameter, stimulus location, for
example.
In contrast, neurons that participate in
forming a
brain meter, show a different form of
activity pattern.
These neurons have activity that
varies proportionately with some stimulus
parameter.
Maybe linearly, as I've drawn here, or
maybe something more sigmoidal, S shaped.
The key point is that the activity changes
in one fashion as a function of stimulus
parameter.
That is, if you get an increasing number
of spikes for the particular stimulus
parameter that holds true across the
entire
range of stimulus parameters you might
observe.
It doesn't change direction and then
decrease again.
It's a monotonic relationship between the
number of spikes and the stimulus
parameter.
This characteristic relationship of the
number of spikes to
a particular stimulus parameter, such as
stimulus location, means that
the number of spikes exhibited by these
neurons can
be used to indicate the actual value of
the stimulus.
So, for example, if this is the response
function
of a neuron that's participating in a
meter, if
you observe a low level of firing like
this,
you can deduce that the stimulus location
is that one.
If you observe a somewhat higher level of
firing, you
can deduce that the stimulus location is
there, and so forth.
So it is the level of the activity that is
exhibited by the neural
population that is the most critical in
indicating a stimulus location.
The requirements of neurons that form a
meter are
that the individual neurons should have
predominantly monotonic response patterns.
Their activity should change in a
particular
fashion with a change in the stimulus.
Some neurons might have response patterns
that go up a certain direction.
And other neurons might have response
patterns that
go down with a certain form of stimulus
change.
But they shouldn't both go up and then
come down again.
In a meter, you may still make use of the
activity of a population of neurons.
And perhaps, the brain might use neurons
that show increasing functions and neurons
that show
decreasing functions in combination with
each other
to indicate the actual value of the
stimulus.
You also need some kind of sensible axis
for organizing this information.
And I will talk about this further when we
get to some particular examples where
meters are used in both a motor control
and in some kinds of sensory information.
In the next lecture, I'm going to talk
about when does a
brain use a map and when does the brain
use a meter.