Neural population geometry: An approach for understanding biological and artificial neural networks
Advances in experimental neuroscience have transformed our ability to explore the structure and function of neural circuits. At the same time, advances in machine learning have unleashed the remarkable computational power of artificial neural networks (ANNs). While these two fields have different tools and applications, they present a similar challenge: namely, understanding how information is embedded and processed through high-dimensional representations to solve complex tasks. One approach to addressing this challenge is to utilize mathematical and computational tools to analyze the geometry of these high-dimensional representations, i.e., neural population geometry. We review examples of geometrical approaches providing insight into the function of biological and artificial neural networks: representation untangling in perception, a geometric theory of classification capacity, disentanglement and abstraction in cognitive systems, topological representations underlying cognitive maps, dynamic untangling in motor systems, and a dynamical approach to cognition. Together, these findings illustrate an exciting trend at the intersection of machine learning, neuroscience, and geometry, in which neural population geometry provides a useful population-level mechanistic descriptor underlying task implementation. Importantly, geometric descriptions are applicable across sensory modalities, brain regions, network architectures and timescales. Thus, neural population geometry has the potential to unify our understanding of structure and function in biological and artificial neural networks, bridging the gap between single neurons, populations and behavior.
Code (0)
등록된 구현이 없습니다.
Tasks
BIG-bench Machine LearningDisentanglementSimilar Papers 제목 키워드 기반
Probing Biological and Artificial Neural Networks with Task-dependent Neural Manifolds
Recently, growth in our understanding of the computations performed in both biological and artificial neural networks has largely been driven by either low-level mechanistic studies or global normative approaches. Howeve…
Why all roads don't lead to Rome: Representation geometry varies across the human visual cortical hierarchy
Biological and artificial intelligence systems navigate the fundamental efficiency-robustness tradeoff for optimal encoding, i.e., they must efficiently encode numerous attributes of the input space while also being robu…
Self-Supervised LearningSame Compression Principle, Different Geometry: Rate-Distortion Signatures Dissociate Biological and Artificial Visual Systems
Efficient coding theory predicts that biological perceptual systems compress sensory input optimally under resource constraints, with the systematic structure of errors reflecting the geometry of that compression. Here w…
Comparing noisy neural population dynamics using optimal transport distances
Biological and artificial neural systems form high-dimensional neural representations that underpin their computational capabilities. Methods for quantifying geometric similarity in neural representations have become a p…
Gaussian ProcessesImage GenerationControl of the Correlation of Spontaneous Neuron Activity in Biological and Noise-activated CMOS Artificial Neural Microcircuits
There are several indications that brain is organized not on a basis of individual unreliable neurons, but on a micro-circuital scale providing Lego blocks employed to create complex architectures. At such an intermediat…