Scaling Properties of Dimensionality Reduction for Neural Populations and Network Models

Ryan C. Williamson, Benjamin R. Cowley, Ashok Litwin-Kumar, Brent Doiron, Adam Kohn, Matthew A. Smith, Byron M. Yu

Abstract: Author Summary We seek to understand how billions of neurons in the brain work together to give rise to everyday brain function. In most current experimental settings, we can only record from tens of neurons for a few hours at a time. A major question in systems neuroscience is whether our interpretation of how neurons interact would change if we monitor orders of magnitude more neurons and for substantially more time. In this study, we use realistic networks of model neurons, which allow us to analyze the activity from as many model neurons as we want for as long as we want. For these models, we found that we can identify the salient interactions among neurons and interpret their activity meaningfully within the range of neurons and recording time available in current experiments. Furthermore, we studied how the neural activity from the models reflects how the neurons are connected. These results help to guide the interpretation of analyses using populations of neurons in the context of the larger network to understand brain function.