ESR3 - Active Sensing Strategies and Perceptual Coding

Identification of neural network architectures for reproducing biological receptive field responses and implementation in neuromorphic hardware. Design, simulation, fabrication and characterization of neuromorphic circuits for spike-based computation of tactile sensory data. Examine how rats execute motor strategies to optimize sensory inputs and the neuronal coding of vibration features at multiple stages of peripheral and cortical processing. Here we will explore the transformation of the sensory code as it leads to a perceptual code, one that determines the animal’s choice. Explore temporal integration – how stimulus coding and the accompanying percept evolves as sampling time increases – and spatial integration– how stimulus coding and the accompanying percept evolves as the number of spatial input channels (whiskers in rats or fingertips in humans) increases.

Characterization of active sensation in rats (execution of motor strategies to optimize the information content of the sensory pathway) and sampling of neuronal population for joint analysis of behaviorally-accessible signals with IIT.