Multitasking via baseline control in recurrent neural networks

Changes in behavioral state, such as arousal and movements, strongly affect neural activity in sensory areas, and can be modeled as long-range projections regulating the mean and variance of baseline input currents. What are the computational benefits of these baseline modulations? We investigate this question within a brain-inspired framework for reservoir computing, where we vary the quenched baseline inputs to a recurrent neural network with random couplings. We found that baseline modulations control the dynamical phase of the reservoir network, unlocking a vast repertoire of network phases. We uncovered a number of bistable phases exhibiting the simultaneous coexistence of fixed points and chaos, of two fixed points, and of weak and strong chaos. We identified several phenomena, including noise-driven enhancement of chaos and ergodicity breaking; neural hysteresis, whereby transitions across a phase boundary retain the memory of the preceding phase. In each bistable phase, the reservoir performs a different binary decision-making task. Fast switching between different tasks can be controlled by adjusting the baseline input mean and variance. Moreover, we found that the reservoir network achieves optimal memory performance at any first-order phase boundary. In summary, baseline control enables multitasking without any optimization of the network couplings, opening directions for brain-inspired artificial intelligence and providing an interpretation for the ubiquitously observed behavioral modulations of cortical activity.

Sparse balance: Excitatory-inhibitory networks with small bias currents and broadly distributed synaptic weights

Cortical circuits generate excitatory currents that must be cancelled by strong inhibition to assure stability. The resulting excitatory-inhibitory (E-I) balance can generate spontaneous irregular activity but, in standard balanced E-I models, this requires that an extremely strong feedforward bias current be included along with the recurrent excitation and inhibition. The absence of experimental evidence for such large bias currents inspired us to examine an alternative regime that exhibits asynchronous activity without requiring unrealistically large feedforward input. In these networks, irregular spontaneous activity is supported by a continually changing sparse set of neurons. To support this activity, synaptic strengths must be drawn from high-variance distributions. Unlike standard balanced networks, these sparse balance networks exhibit robust nonlinear responses to uniform inputs and non-Gaussian input statistics. Interestingly, the speed, not the size, of synaptic fluctuations dictates the degree of sparsity in the model. In addition to simulations, we provide a mean-field analysis to illustrate the properties of these networks.

A class of models in computational neuroscience that have been successful at describing a variety of effects in the neocortex involve a tight balance between excitatory, inhibitory and unrealistically large external input, without which the model cannot produce robust patterns of activity. In this work, we explore what happens when these inputs are smaller in size, and we provide an alternative solution for recovering robust network activity. This solution relies on broadly distributed synaptic strengths and, interestingly, gives rise to sparse subsets of neurons firing at any given time. Unlike the conventional models, the networks exhibit nonlinear responses to uniform external input.

A Diffusive-Particle Theory of Free Recall

Diffusive models of free recall have been recently introduced in the memory literature, but their potential remains largely unexplored. In this paper, a diffusive model of short-term verbal memory is considered, in which the psychological state of the subject is encoded as the instantaneous position of a particle diffusing over a semantic graph. The model is particularly suitable for studying the dependence of free-recall observables on the semantic properties of the words to be recalled. Besides predicting some well-known experimental features (forward asymmetry, semantic clustering, word-length effect), a novel prediction is obtained on the relationship between the contiguity effect and the syllabic length of words; shorter words, by way of their wider semantic range, are predicted to be characterized by stronger forward contiguity. A fresh analysis of archival free-recall data allows to confirm this prediction.

Properties of networks with partially structured and partially random connectivity

Networks studied in many disciplines, including neuroscience and mathematical biology, have connectivity that may be stochastic about some underlying mean connectivity represented by a non-normal matrix. Furthermore, the stochasticity may not be independent and identically distributed (iid) across elements of the connectivity matrix. More generally, the problem of understanding the behavior of stochastic matrices with nontrivial mean structure and correlations arises in many settings. We address this by characterizing large random N×N matrices of the form A=M+LJR, where M,L, and R are arbitrary deterministic matrices and J is a random matrix of zero-mean iid elements. M can be non-normal, and L and R allow correlations that have separable dependence on row and column indices. We first provide a general formula for the eigenvalue density of A. For A non-normal, the eigenvalues do not suffice to specify the dynamics induced by A, so we also provide general formulas for the transient evolution of the magnitude of activity and frequency power spectrum in an N-dimensional linear dynamical system with a coupling matrix given by A. These quantities can also be thought of as characterizing the stability and the magnitude of the linear response of a nonlinear network to small perturbations about a fixed point. We derive these formulas and work them out analytically for some examples of M,L, and R motivated by neurobiological models. We also argue that the persistence as N→∞ of a finite number of randomly distributed outlying eigenvalues outside the support of the eigenvalue density of A, as previously observed, arises in regions of the complex plane Ω where there are nonzero singular values of L(-1)(z1-M)R(-1) (for z∈Ω) that vanish as N→∞. When such singular values do not exist and L and R are equal to the identity, there is a correspondence in the normalized Frobenius norm (but not in the operator norm) between the support of the spectrum of A for J of norm σ and the σ pseudospectrum of M.

Mathematical equivalence of two common forms of firing rate models of neural networks

We demonstrate the mathematical equivalence of two commonly used forms of firing rate model equations for neural networks. In addition, we show that what is commonly interpreted as the firing rate in one form of model may be better interpreted as a low-pass-filtered firing rate, and we point out a conductance-based firing rate model.

Negative echo in the density evolution of ultracold fermionic gases

We predict a nonequilibrium critical phenomenon in the space-time density evolution of a fermionic gas above the temperature of transition into the superfluid phase. On the BCS side of the Bose-Einstein condensation-BCS crossover, the evolution of a localized density disturbance exhibits a negative echo at the point of the initial inhomogeneity. Approaching the Bose-Einstein condensation side, this effect competes with the slow spreading of the density of bosonic molecules. However, even here the echo dominates for large enough times. This effect may be used as an experimental tool to locate the position of the transition.