Mechanism on brain information processing: Energy coding

Abstract

According to the experimental result of signal transmission and neuronal energetic demands being tightly coupled to information coding in the cerebral cortex, the authors present a brand new scientific theory that offers a unique mechanism for brain information processing. They demonstrate that the neural coding produced by the activity of the brain is well described by the theory of energy coding. Due to the energy coding model’s ability to reveal mechanisms of brain information processing based upon known biophysical properties, they cannot only reproduce various experimental results of neuroelectrophysiology but also quantitatively explain the recent experimental results from neuroscientists at Yale University by means of the principle of energy coding. Due to the theory of energy coding to bridge the gap between functional connections within a biological neural network and energetic consumption, they estimate that the theory has very important consequences for quantitative research of cognitive function.

Energy coding in neural network with inhibitory neurons

“…1. Therefore, the following neural network structure conforms with the specified limits of neurobiology (Wang and Zhang 2006;Wang et al 2009). …”

“…(Wang and Zhang 2006;Wang et al 2009Wang et al , 2008Zhang 2012, 2007). These results not only present the energy formula for a single neuron (Wang et al 2009;Wang and Zhang 2007), but also describe the energy distribution characteristics and energy coding in structural neural networks .…”

“…However, these neural coding theories have many difficulties in studying neural encoding and decoding in the brain (McLaughlin 2009;Gopathy Purushothanman & David 2005).The main reason is that these coding theories are local and regional, and do not cross influence of large-scale neurological activities. Meanwhile, there is a paucity of adequate data analysis for resolving this issue (Simon 2003;Wang and Zhang 2006;, which is mainly due to limitations of experimental neuroscience and technology, i.e. the current experimental equipment are unable to simultaneously record massive and large-scale neural network activities.…”

The essence of neuronal activity from the consistency of two different neuron models

“…However, neural energy provides an effective scheme for solving the above problems. (4) Since the energy is a scalar, whether it is a single or neuron population, or whether it is a network or a behavioral, as well as a linear or a nonlinear neural model, their dynamic responses can be used to describe patterns of energy coding by superposition of neural energy [4,[6][7][8][9][10][11][12]. Thus, global information about the inherent, intrinsic, and functional neural activities can be obtained, while it cannot be achieved by other traditional coding theories [15,[17][18][19][20][21].…”

“…For this purpose, a novel theory of neural coding has been proposed in neuroscience researches [4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13], which provides a new perspective on how to understand the nature of neuronal activity. The core of this coding theory is that there is a unique correspondence between various neuronal membrane potentials and their neural energy expenditure, which makes it possible to convert the firing patterns of a variety of complex, highly nonlinear membrane potentials into new neural information processing methods that are processed in an energy's firing pattern and have been named as neural energy coding [7][8][9][10][11][12][13].…”