Several theories of early sensory processing suggest that it whitens sensory stimuli. Here, we test three key predictions of the whitening theory using recordings from 152 ganglion cells in salamander retina responding to natural movies. We confirm the previous finding that firing rates of ganglion cells are less correlated compared to the pixels in naturalistic stimulus, although significant correlations remain. We show that while the power spectrum of ganglion cells decays less steeply than that of natural scenes, it is not completely flattened. Finally, retinal ganglion cells reduce the dimensionality of the photoreceptor signal, as evidenced by their significantly lower numbers. Whitening theory predicts that only the top principal components of the visual stimulus should be transmitted. By comparing the right singular vectors of stimulus and firing rate covariance matrices, we find evidence that supports this prediction.
Title
Population Coding in Retinal Ganglion Cells
Published
2018-05-01
Full Collection Name
Electrical Engineering & Computer Sciences Technical Reports
Other Identifiers
EECS-2018-23
Type
Text
Extent
23 p
Archive
The Engineering Library
Usage Statement
Researchers may make free and open use of the UC Berkeley Library’s digitized public domain materials. However, some materials in our online collections may be protected by U.S. copyright law (Title 17, U.S.C.). Use or reproduction of materials protected by copyright beyond that allowed by fair use (Title 17, U.S.C. § 107) requires permission from the copyright owners. The use or reproduction of some materials may also be restricted by terms of University of California gift or purchase agreements, privacy and publicity rights, or trademark law. Responsibility for determining rights status and permissibility of any use or reproduction rests exclusively with the researcher. To learn more or make inquiries, please see our permissions policies (https://www.lib.berkeley.edu/about/permissions-policies).
