English (United Kingdom)

https://curated-unify.zendy.io/wp-json/zendy-region/v1/featured_content/oa?rat=en

https://curated-unify.zendy.io/wp-json/zendy-region/v1/highlighted_journal/

Global: Zendy Plus annual

Presents the access of premium content as premium feature

Premium Content

Presents the keyphrase highlighting as premium feature

Keyphrase Highlighting

Presents the summarisation as premium feature

Summarisation

Insights

Presents the pdf analysis as premium feature

PDF Analysis

Presents the zaia usage as premium feature

ZAIA

Global: Zendy Plus monthly

Global: Zendy Tools annual

Global: Zendy Tools monthly

Global: Zendy Free Plan

Experimental observations of neuroscience suggest that the brain is working aprobabilistic way when computing information with uncertainty. This processingcould be modeled as Bayesian inference. However, it remains unclear howBayesian inference could be implemented at the level of neuronal circuits ofthe brain. In this study, we propose a novel general-purpose neuralimplementation of probabilistic inference based on a ubiquitous network ofcortical microcircuits, termed winner-take-all (WTA) circuit. We show that eachWTA circuit could encode the distribution of states defined on a variable. Byconnecting multiple WTA circuits together, the joint distribution can berepresented for arbitrary probabilistic graphical models. Moreover, we provethat the neural dynamics of WTA circuit is able to implement one of the mostpowerful inference methods in probabilistic graphical models, mean-fieldinference. We show that the synaptic drive of each spiking neuron in the WTAcircuit encodes the marginal probability of the variable in each state, and thefiring probability (or firing rate) of each neuron is proportional to themarginal probability. Theoretical analysis and experimental results demonstratethat the WTA circuits can get comparable inference result as mean-fieldapproximation. Taken together, our results suggest that the WTA circuit couldbe seen as the minimal inference unit of neuronal circuits.

Winner-Take-All as Basic Probabilistic Inference Unit of Neuronal Circuits