The Network is the Message
A continued stimulus, such as a state of tension, a light or a sound, produces a continued passage of sensory impulses to the central nervous system.
Adrian & Zotterman, 1926
Cho and John are talking about the following article:
Ask a Neuroscientist: What’s a spike train?


In this post the dialogue is realised by an interaction of virtual characters, for more information please check the page “Virtual characters“

Cho
Yes, it makes little sense to just zoom in on one single neuron

John
Information and information processing is distributed over the whole brain?

Cho
Well, not all of it all the time. Specific pathways and modules exist for specific types of information

John
Such as the “visual pathway” and stuff like that?

Cho
That’s a good example. The retina already detects and filters some signals right at the beginning

Cho
and then the associative cortex deals with the end product: there’s serial and parallel aspects at all levels.

John
Ok, so “it’s complicated”, again 😟

Cho
I’m afraid so! If I am not mistaken Sam once told me about his artificial neural networks and I was quite shocked at their simplicity

John
Simplicity? 🤔

Cho

John
So they forgot essential features?

Cho

John
Oh, right, that is a major difference of course!

Cho
Now I think he did tell me that there were new developments, there always are, which organized things in a more reasonable way

John
I think Sam is working with “spiking neural networks” nowadays?

Cho
That sounds promising. People tend to think neurons only fire now and then, but in fact they fire all the time

John
What do you mean?🤔

Cho
It’s not like they send on one impulse and then just sit there, as long as you are hearing the sound, seeing the color, etc. they fire!

John
Oh, ok, so there’s lots of spikes, not just one big yes or no signal?

Cho
Indeed, we normally speak of “spike trains”, more like a telegraphed message with lots of yesses and noes 😊

John
OK, this is very helpful 😉
… Continue reading our conversations that are posted every Monday…
Related post
Total posts on the argument
All aboard the Spike Train!
The experimental results from neurobiology have lead to the investigation of a third generation of neural network models which …
I’m in your brain, releasing your transmitters
The mechanism of action of nerve stimulation is unknown… it is possible that substances are formed under the influence of nerve stimulation
Come in Neuron: do you copy?
If we liken the nervous currents to electric currents, we can compare the nervous system below the hemispheres to a direct circuit from sense-organ to muscle
Zap goes the Neuron
If I do not greatly deceive myself, I have succeeded in realizing… the hundred years’ dream of physicists and physiologists, to wit, the identity of the nervous principle with electricity
Today one Neuron, tomorrow the Brain!
The Navy said the perceptron would be the first non-living mechanism capable of receiving, recognizing and identifying its surroundings without any human training or control
Do Neurons Count?
Neural computers do not execute typical machine instructions of digital computers unless they are made to emulate the behavior of physical neural networks