Abstract
Oscillations can improve neural coding by grouping action potentials into synchronous windows, but this same effect harms coding when action potentials become over-synchronized. Diseases ranging from Parkinson’s to epilepsy suggest that over-synchronization can lead to pathology, but the precise boundary separating healthy from pathological synchrony remains an open theoretical problem. We address this in series of numerical experiments. We study a simple model that shows how error in individual cells’ computations is traded for population-level synchronization. In this model we conceive of a “voltage budget” where instantaneous moments of membrane voltage can be partitioned into oscillatory and computational terms. In comparing these budget terms we suggest a new set of biologically measurable inequalities that separate healthy from pathological synchrony. Finally, we derive an optimal non-biological algorithm for exchanging computational error with population synchrony.
Footnotes
The authors have no conflicts of interest to declare.
EJP and BV designed the study and wrote manuscript. EJP implemented the model and conducted the analysis.