{"title":"Active inference with reusable state-dependent value profiles.","authors":"Jacob Poschl","doi":"10.1007/s00422-026-01066-0","DOIUrl":"10.1007/s00422-026-01066-0","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Optimal behavior in volatile environments requires agents to deploy different value-control regimes across hidden latent structures. However, representing independent preferences, biases, and action confidence for every situation is computationally and statistically intractable. We introduce value profiles: a compact set of reusable parameter bundles-comprising outcome preferences, policy priors, and action precision-assigned to hidden states in a generative model. As posterior beliefs evolve trial-by-trial, effective control parameters emerge through belief-weighted mixing. This enables state-conditional strategy recruitment without the need for independent parameterization of every context. We evaluate this framework in a probabilistic reversal learning setting using simulation-based model recovery and parameter recovery, comparing profile-based models against static and uncertainty-coupled precision baselines. Model comparison favors the profile-based architecture, with consistent parameter recovery demonstrating its structural identifiability. Beyond predictive fit, we show how the framework allows for a mechanistic attribution of behavior to specific adaptive channels, distinguishing between changes in what an agent prefers and how decisively it acts. Overall, reusable value profiles provide a tractable computational account of belief-conditioned control, offering a mode-like representational scheme for behavioral flexibility that is both identifiable and theoretically grounded.</p>","PeriodicalId":55374,"journal":{"name":"Biological Cybernetics","volume":"120 5-6","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.0,"publicationDate":"2026-10-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC13649937/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"149139153","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"工程技术","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Elements of olfactory intelligence in Drosophila.","authors":"Aurel A Lazar, Yiyin Zhou","doi":"10.1007/s00422-026-01065-1","DOIUrl":"10.1007/s00422-026-01065-1","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>The ability to make the world of odorants intelligible is a key capability of the Drosophila olfactory system that we shall call olfactory intelligence. Characterizing the functional logic of the Drosophila early olfactory system that makes the natural world of odorants intelligible is a major challenge in neuroscience. Starting by modeling the space of odorants using constructs of both semantic and syntactic information, we establish that the Antenna Lobe and Mushroom Body Calyx first decompose the confounding representation of the Antenna into a concentration independent odorant semantics information and the ON-OFF timing of the syntactic information. Subsequently the two streams of information are integrated and produce a novel time and rank-based representation of Kenyon Cell outputs, called the marked first spike sequence code. In conjunction with a novel distance measure for the spike sequence code, we demonstrate that the rank-based representation supports accurate classification of ON-OFF odorant semantics. Computationally, these elements of olfactory intelligence are realized by a class of differential divisive normalization processors modeling the feedback circuits in a causal chain of stages including the Antenna, Antennal Lobe and the Mushroom Body Calyx. Consequently, the early olfactory system makes the natural world of odorants intelligible.</p>","PeriodicalId":55374,"journal":{"name":"Biological Cybernetics","volume":"120 5-6","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.0,"publicationDate":"2026-09-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC13616012/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"149065884","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"工程技术","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The effect of data preprocessing on spike correlation analysis results.","authors":"Jonas Oberste-Frielinghaus, Junji Ito, Sonja Grün","doi":"10.1007/s00422-026-01062-4","DOIUrl":"10.1007/s00422-026-01062-4","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>In recent years, an increasing number of large electrophysiological data sets have become publicly available, thereby providing researchers with the opportunity to analyze spike train data without conducting their own experiments. While this is undoubtedly a positive development, it increases the need for proper documentation on how the data were collected and what preprocessing was performed on the data, since interpreting analysis results in ignorance of these pieces of information can lead to wrong conclusions. An important preprocessing step is the removal of artifacts from the recordings. Electrophysiological recordings are particularly susceptible to electrical cross-talks between recording channels, resulting in artifact spikes that are coincident in multiple channels on the time scale of the data sampling rate, i.e., 1/30 ms in popular setups. The removal by signal whitening is only possible if also the raw sampled data are available, thus to eliminate this type of artifact is to remove all coincident spikes on the recording time scale to definitely avoid artifact spikes. However, given the lack of the \"ground truth\", this step has the potential to eliminate, in conjunction with the artifacts, components of the data that are pertinent to the research objective. In this study, we use a modified version of the Unitary Event Analysis and demonstrate that such preprocessing results in significantly lower correlations than expected by chance even on longer time scales. We also propose a method to correct for the bias introduced by this preprocessing. Thus, slight changes in the preprocessing have potentially strong impact on analysis results and methods need to consider these effects.</p>","PeriodicalId":55374,"journal":{"name":"Biological Cybernetics","volume":"120 5-6","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.0,"publicationDate":"2026-09-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC13601089/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"149032096","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"工程技术","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Stephen Coombes, Rüdiger Thul, Stefan Ruschel, Rachel Nicks
{"title":"Adaptive conduction delays and phase locking in spiking Haken Lighthouse networks.","authors":"Stephen Coombes, Rüdiger Thul, Stefan Ruschel, Rachel Nicks","doi":"10.1007/s00422-026-01064-2","DOIUrl":"10.1007/s00422-026-01064-2","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>We develop a theory of phase-locked activity in delayed spiking networks using the Haken Lighthouse model as an analytically tractable event-based description of neural dynamics. For networks with fixed delays, we derive self-consistency conditions for phase-locked states and an associated linear stability theory formulated directly in terms of spike-time perturbations. The framework is illustrated for a delayed autapse, a reciprocally coupled two-cell network, and spatially structured rings with distance-dependent coupling and conduction delays, where circulant symmetry allows stability to be decomposed into Fourier modes. We then introduce an activity-dependent white matter plasticity rule in which myelination modulates axonal conduction speed and hence communication delay. This leads naturally to a slow-fast system with state-dependent delays, in which frozen phase-locked branches organise the adaptive dynamics. The plasticity rule selects commensurate delay-period relationships, providing a mechanism for the emergence of synchrony, other frequency-locked states, slow switching between competing phase-locked patterns, and the organisation of heterogeneous delays into discrete delay-period classes. Direct simulations of the event-driven network support the analytical predictions and illustrate how adaptive conduction can reshape the attractor structure of a delayed spiking network and generate long-timescale transitions. These results provide a tractable mathematical framework for studying how activity-dependent myelination may regulate temporal coordination, synchrony, and communication through coherence in spiking neural systems.</p>","PeriodicalId":55374,"journal":{"name":"Biological Cybernetics","volume":"120 5-6","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.0,"publicationDate":"2026-09-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC13593689/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"149018747","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"工程技术","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pavel Tolmachev, Rishi R Dhingra, Jonathan H Manton, Mathias Dutschmann
{"title":"Modeling synaptic interactions between mammalian breathing and swallowing central pattern generators.","authors":"Pavel Tolmachev, Rishi R Dhingra, Jonathan H Manton, Mathias Dutschmann","doi":"10.1007/s00422-026-01061-5","DOIUrl":"10.1007/s00422-026-01061-5","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Breathing and swallowing are tightly coupled motor behaviors whose execution depends on the coordinated activity of two brainstem central pattern generators (R-CPG, Sw-CPG). We present a mechanistic neural network model that captures this coordination. The model was built by incrementally expanding the synaptic connectivity of R-CPG and Sw-CPG modules, each composed of neuronal population nodes whose dynamics incorporate firing rate adaptation. The rhythmogenic cores of both CPGs are implemented as half-center oscillators operating independently. In agreement with accompanying experimental recordings from an in situ perfused brainstem preparation, a simulated 10 s sensory drive to the superior laryngeal nerve (SLN) reliably elicits fictive sequential swallowing bursts accompanied by glottal closure and suppression of inspiratory activity. Short SLN stimuli (100 ms) produce isolated single swallows that reset the phase of the respiratory oscillator. Phase space analysis of the model dynamics offers additional insight into this SLN-evoked respiratory phase resetting. Consistent with prior experimental observations, simulated pontine inhibition reproduces apneusis and abolish swallowing-related glottal closure during sequential swallowing. Systematic perturbation of synaptic weights across specific network pathways identifies vulnerable connections whose weakening recapitulates clinically relevant breathing-swallowing disorders, including aspiration. The model thereby generates mechanistic predictions that may inform the design of therapeutic interventions for conditions characterized by impaired breathing-swallowing coordination.</p>","PeriodicalId":55374,"journal":{"name":"Biological Cybernetics","volume":"120 5-6","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.0,"publicationDate":"2026-09-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC13588932/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"149002429","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"工程技术","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Alexander Wendt, Kolja Klett, Jan Benda, Benjamin Lindner, Jan Grewe
{"title":"Increased firing rates monotonically expand neuronal coding bandwidth.","authors":"Alexander Wendt, Kolja Klett, Jan Benda, Benjamin Lindner, Jan Grewe","doi":"10.1007/s00422-026-01063-3","DOIUrl":"10.1007/s00422-026-01063-3","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Sensory information is often processed by populations of neurons that vary with respect to their levels of spiking activity. It appears plausible that neurons that fire more often are capable of following faster changes in the input signal than those with lower firing rates. In this study, we test this intuitive assumption by systematically investigating how the spiking activity of a neuron affects information transmission. To this end, we employ the coherence function as a spectral measure of information transmission and study the relation between the width of the coherence function, which we call coding bandwidth, and the firing rate. The reexamination of experimental data from a previous study on weakly-electric fish and the simulation of biologically inspired neuron models fitted to real neurons reveal indeed a significant correlation between firing rate and coding bandwidth. In addition, known analytical expressions for the coherence function for the stochastic leaky integrate-and-fire model demonstrate a linear relation for high firing rates. However, in contrast to intuition, the width of the coherence function becomes independent of the firing rate and is completely set by the membrane time constant for very low firing rates.</p>","PeriodicalId":55374,"journal":{"name":"Biological Cybernetics","volume":"120 5-6","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.0,"publicationDate":"2026-09-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC13582337/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148984161","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"工程技术","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Jacob Kanev, Chris Christodoulou, Achilleas Koutsou, Klaus Obermayer
{"title":"The Difference Neuron-a new spiking neuron model.","authors":"Jacob Kanev, Chris Christodoulou, Achilleas Koutsou, Klaus Obermayer","doi":"10.1007/s00422-026-01052-6","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1007/s00422-026-01052-6","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>The previously proposed Neural Mode (J. Kanev, A. Koutsou, C. Christodoulou, K. Obermayer; 2016; Neural Computation, 28(10):2091-2128) quantifies to what extent spiking neurons use temporal integration or coincidence detection to calculate their output from their input. While the Neural Mode is easy to measure, parameterising a neuron model to show a certain level of coincidence detection or integration is not straightforward. We propose a new spiking neuron model - the Difference Neuron - that integrates or detects coincidences according to a predefined value of the Neural Mode. The Difference Neuron is a simple model without hidden states that depend on infinite input. It receives one or several input spike trains, and it can be configured to detect simple coincidences, gaps, or more complex patterns. It can exhibit spike bursting, and it covers areas of mathematical operation a biological neuron does not - it can spike without stimulus, it can operate purely on inhibition, and it can show inhibition and coincidence detection combinations that are unavailable to other neuron models. Sparsely connected networks of Difference Neurons can show different levels of regular and irregular synchronisation, depending on the Neural Mode of their neurons. We explore several single-neuron examples and investigate the neuron's behaviour. Because this new model does not include differential equations describing membrane potentials or ion concentrations, but computes its output spike times from simple time comparisons, we believe the Difference Neuron will simplify investigations into dynamics of spiking neurons and networks, and into spike patterns and the mechanisms of the neural code.</p>","PeriodicalId":55374,"journal":{"name":"Biological Cybernetics","volume":"120 5-6","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.0,"publicationDate":"2026-09-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148882487","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"工程技术","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"De novo motor learning as controller synthesis: a conceptual framework.","authors":"Ian S Howard","doi":"10.1007/s00422-026-01058-0","DOIUrl":"10.1007/s00422-026-01058-0","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Most studies of motor learning focus on adaptation, which can be described as recalibration within an existing controller following changes in dynamics, kinematics, or sensory feedback. In these paradigms, control variables, coordinate representations, and feedback organization are treated as available a priori, and learning as parameter tuning within a specified controller architecture. However, de novo motor-learning tasks require learners to establish novel relationships between intention, sensory feedback, and action, rather than merely recalibrating a familiar control organization. These tasks often show slow or variable acquisition, selective and task-dependent generalization, strong context dependence, and dissociations between learning rate and final performance. Such features are difficult to explain solely as parameter tuning within a fixed controller architecture. Here we propose that de novo motor learning is better understood as controller synthesis, rather than only as parameter adaptation. On this view, learning involves forming and stabilizing content-addressable, plant-state-addressed controller memories: local sensorimotor control organizations that specify where a controller applies, which task-relevant signals are selected and routed, how state and progress are estimated, how control is computed, how internal control signals map onto action, and when and how the controller is expressed. This framework interprets slow or variable acquisition, structured generalization, context dependence, and learning-rate/outcome dissociations as possible consequences of controller-memory formation, stabilization, retrieval, and expression, rather than of slow parameter convergence within an established controller. It also suggests tests for distinguishing controller synthesis from fixed-structure alternatives based on adaptation, contextual inference, or policy learning.</p>","PeriodicalId":55374,"journal":{"name":"Biological Cybernetics","volume":"120 5-6","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.0,"publicationDate":"2026-08-31","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148868026","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"工程技术","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Efficient coding predicts synaptic conductance.","authors":"James V Stone","doi":"10.1007/s00422-026-01060-6","DOIUrl":"10.1007/s00422-026-01060-6","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Retinothalamic and thalamocortical synapses are efficient in the sense that each synapse conveys as many bits per Joule as possible, but efficiency falls rapidly if synaptic conductance deviates from its natural value Harris et al. (2015, 2019). However, the manner in which efficiency falls with conductance remains unexplained. Recently, Malkin et al. (2026) showed that synaptic noise is minimised given the available energy, consistent with a minimal energy boundary. Here, this boundary is expressed in terms of Shannon's information theory Shannon and Weaver (1949), which yields a model that predicts the efficiency values observed in Harris et al. (2015) across a 120-fold change in synaptic conductance ( <math> <mrow><msup><mi>R</mi> <mn>2</mn></msup> <mo>=</mo> <mn>0.769</mn></mrow> </math> , <math><mrow><mi>p</mi> <mo><</mo> <mn>0.001</mn></mrow> </math> ). This model also predicts that, for a synapse at its natural conductance, each pre-synaptic spike provides an average of 3.58 bits to its post-synaptic neuron, which is consistent with physiological values. Crucially, given the biophysical constraints that, a) synaptic efficiency is maximised at the natural conductance, and, b) synaptic noise variance is minimised in accordance with the minimal energy boundary, the proposed model contains no free parameters, so it is predictive rather than descriptive. The results presented here are consistent with the general principle that CNS neurons maximise information efficiency (bits per Joule), rather than information rate (bits per second).</p>","PeriodicalId":55374,"journal":{"name":"Biological Cybernetics","volume":"120 5-6","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.0,"publicationDate":"2026-08-31","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC13529614/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148867968","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"工程技术","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Spatial spectral narrowing in the corticothalamic neural field model across consciousness states.","authors":"Ronobir Chandra Sarker, Md Abdul Hye","doi":"10.1007/s00422-026-01053-5","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1007/s00422-026-01053-5","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>The neural correlates of consciousness have been characterized primarily through temporal EEG features, while the spatial dynamics of cortical activity across consciousness states remain poorly understood. Here, we analyze the spatial mode structure of the Robinson corticothalamic neural field model (CTM) across five consciousness states: healthy wakefulness, emergence from minimally conscious state (eMCS), minimally conscious state (MCS), deep sleep (N3), and unresponsive wakefulness syndrome (UWS). We compute the noise-amplified spatial spectrum, which quantifies how the CTM filters spatiotemporal noise across spatial wavenumbers. We find systematic spectral narrowing with decreasing consciousness: the spectral centroid decreases by 48% from healthy wakefulness to UWS, and the finite-wavenumber power fraction tracks the consciousness axis closely. A complementary dispersion analysis confirms that no classical Turing instability occurs in the CTM for any consciousness state. Two-dimensional stochastic simulations show that healthy cortex develops rich multi-scale spatial heterogeneity, while UWS exhibits markedly reduced spatial variation. These results provide a new spatial perspective on the CTM's representation of consciousness states and generate testable predictions for high-density EEG spatial spectral analysis.</p>","PeriodicalId":55374,"journal":{"name":"Biological Cybernetics","volume":"120 5-6","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.0,"publicationDate":"2026-08-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148857892","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"工程技术","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}