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Computation is concentrated in rich clubs of local cortical neurons

Samantha P. Faber, Nicholas M. Timme, John M. Beggs, Ehren L. Newman
doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/290981
Samantha P. Faber
1Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, Indiana University Bloomington, 1101 E. 10th St, Bloomington, IN, 47405, U.S.A.
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  • For correspondence: samfaber@indiana.edu
Nicholas M. Timme
2Department of Psychology, Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis, 402 N Blackford, LD 124, Indianapolis, IN, 46202, U.S.A.
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John M. Beggs
3Department of Physics, Indiana University Bloomington, Swain Hall West, 727 E. 3rd St, Bloomington, IN, 47405, U.S.A.
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Ehren L. Newman
1Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, Indiana University Bloomington, 1101 E. 10th St, Bloomington, IN, 47405, U.S.A.
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ABSTRACT

To understand how neural circuits process information, it is essential to identify the relationship between computation and circuit topology. Rich-clubs, highly interconnected sets of neurons, are known to propagate a disproportionate amount of information within cortical circuits. Here, we test the hypothesis that rich-clubs also perform a disproportionate amount of computation. To do so, we recorded the spiking activity of on average ∼300 well-isolated individual neurons from organotypic cortical cultures. We then constructed weighted, directed networks reflecting the effective connectivity between the neurons. For each neuron, we quantified the amount of computation it performed based on its inputs. We found that rich-club neurons compute ∼200% more information than neurons outside of the rich club. Indeed, the amount of computation performed in the rich-club was proportional to the amount information propagation by the same neurons. This suggests that, in these circuits, information propagation drives computation. Comparing the computation-to-propagation ratio inside versus outside of the rich club showed that rich clubs compute at a slightly, though significantly, reduced level (∼4% lower). In total, our findings indicate that rich club topology in effective cortical circuits supports not only information propagation but also neural computation.

AUTHOR SUMMARY Here we answer the question of whether rich club topology in functional cortical circuits supports neural computation as it has been previously shown to do for information propagation. To do so, we combined network analysis with information theoretic tools to analyze the spiking activity of hundreds of neurons recorded from organotypic cultures of mouse somatosensory cortex. We found that neurons in rich clubs computed significantly more than neurons outside of rich clubs, suggesting that rich-clubs do support computation in cortical circuits. Indeed, the amount of computation that we found in the rich club was proportional to the amount of information they propagate suggesting that, in these circuits, information propagation drives computation.

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The copyright holder for this preprint is the author/funder, who has granted bioRxiv a license to display the preprint in perpetuity. It is made available under a CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0 International license.
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Posted March 28, 2018.
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Computation is concentrated in rich clubs of local cortical neurons
Samantha P. Faber, Nicholas M. Timme, John M. Beggs, Ehren L. Newman
bioRxiv 290981; doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/290981
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Computation is concentrated in rich clubs of local cortical neurons
Samantha P. Faber, Nicholas M. Timme, John M. Beggs, Ehren L. Newman
bioRxiv 290981; doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/290981

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