An information-theoretic analysis of the ON/OFF pathway split in the Drosophila visual system
Abstract/Contents
- Abstract
- Many animals exhibit sensory systems that split into multiple parallel pathways at an early processing stage. For example, the visual system of the fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster is split into separate ON and OFF pathways to facilitate the detection of increments and decrements in light intensity, respectively. Although previous studies have considered the computational features of similar ON/OFF pathway architectures, they have invariably focused on sensory systems that utilize a digital code consisting of action potentials. In contrast, the Drosophila visual system consists largely of cells that fire graded potentials and therefore rely on an analog rather than digital code. In this study I have sought to address the hypothesis that an analog ON/OFF pathway architecture of the sort exemplified by the Drosophila visual system is advantageous for the efficient coding of sensory stimuli. By evaluating the information-theoretic properties of an analog model sensory system consisting of parallel ON/ON or ON/OFF pathways, I demonstrate that the latter configuration requires a lower average signal amplitude to convey the same amount of information about a given stimulus. Furthermore, I show that empirical estimates of the information capacity of the split ON/OFF pathway in flies are consistent with the predictions of my rudimentary model. These results suggest that pathway splitting has similarly beneficial implications for sensory systems based on analog codes as for systems based on digital codes.
Description
| Type of resource | text |
|---|---|
| Date created | June 6, 2018 |
Creators/Contributors
| Author | Zimmerman, David M. |
|---|---|
| Degree granting institution | Stanford University, Department of Physics |
| Primary advisor | Clandinin, Thomas R. |
| Advisor | Burchat, Patricia R. |
Subjects
| Subject | Drosophila |
|---|---|
| Subject | visual system |
| Subject | pathway splitting |
| Subject | efficient coding |
| Subject | information theory |
| Genre | Thesis |
Bibliographic information
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- User agrees that, where applicable, content will not be used to identify or to otherwise infringe the privacy or confidentiality rights of individuals. Content distributed via the Stanford Digital Repository may be subject to additional license and use restrictions applied by the depositor.
- License
- This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial 3.0 Unported license (CC BY-NC).
Preferred citation
- Preferred Citation
- Zimmerman, David M. (2018). An information-theoretic analysis of the ON/OFF pathway split in the Drosophila visual system. Stanford Digital Repository. Available at: https://purl.stanford.edu/vx611vc4524
Collection
Undergraduate Theses, Department of Physics
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- dzimmerm@stanford.edu
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