Neuronal variability in sensory cortex predicts perceptual decisions. To investigate the interaction of bottom-up and top-down mechanisms during the decision process, we developed a hierarchical network model. The network consists of two circuits composed of leaky integrate-and-fire neurons: an integration circuit (e.g. LIP, FEF) and a sensory circuit (MT), recurrently coupled via bottom-up feedforward connections and top-down feedback connections. The integration circuit accumulates sensory evidence and produces a binary categorization due to winner-take-all competition between two decision-encoding populations (X.J. Wang, Neuron, 2002). The sensory circuit is a balanced randomly connected EI-network, that contains neural populations selective to opposite directions of motion. We have used this model to simulate a standard two-alternative forced-choice motion discrimination task.
Model Type: Realistic Network
Region(s) or Organism(s): Neocortex
Cell Type(s): Abstract integrate-and-fire leaky neuron
Model Concept(s): Attractor Neural Network; Winner-take-all
Simulation Environment: Brian; Python
Implementer(s): Wimmer, Klaus [wimmer.klaus at gmail.com]
References:
Wimmer K et al. (2015). Sensory integration dynamics in a hierarchical network explains choice probabilities in cortical area MT. Nature communications. 6 [PubMed]