Optimal path-finding through mental exploration based on neural energy field gradients

Abstract

Rodent animal can accomplish self-locating and path-finding task by forming a cognitive map in the hippocampus representing the environment. In the classical model of the cognitive map, the system (artificial animal) needs large amounts of physical exploration to study spatial environment to solve path-finding problems, which costs too much time and energy. Although Hopfield’s mental exploration model makes up for the deficiency mentioned above, the path is still not efficient enough. Moreover, his model mainly focused on the artificial neural network, and clear physiological meanings has not been addressed. In this work, based on the concept of mental exploration, neural energy coding theory has been applied to the novel calculation model to solve the path-finding problem. Energy field is constructed on the basis of the firing power of place cell clusters, and the energy field gradient can be used in mental exploration to solve path-finding problems. The study shows that the new mental exploration model can efficiently find the optimal path, and present the learning process with biophysical meaning as well. We also analyzed the parameters of the model which affect the path efficiency. This new idea verifies the importance of place cell and synapse in spatial memory and proves that energy coding is effective to study cognitive activities. This may provide the theoretical basis for the neural dynamics mechanism of spatial memory.

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

“…As the membrane potential and the corresponding energy expenditure have a unique correspondence, the traditional membrane potential encoding can also be expressed by the neural energy coding [9][10][11][12][13][14]. This will provide a sufficient theoretical basis for future studies on perceptual cognition and the construction of global neural models for brain function, which is a new brain theory of neuro combined with holism and reductionism.…”

“…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].…”

“…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]. According to such a coding theory, we found that neural energy coding can well integrate the reductionism and holism in the field of cognitive neuroscience and be used as the main basis for the study of global neural activity of brain functionality [11].…”

“…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].…”

“…The results showed that almost the best path of exploration can be found as long as ten times of performing mental exploration. Compared with published studies, the method of neural energy field can greatly improve the efficiency of mental exploration [12].…”