Multiple Timescales of Adaptation in a Neural Code

Part of Advances in Neural Information Processing Systems 13 (NIPS 2000)

Authors

Adrienne Fairhall, Geoffrey Lewen, William Bialek, Robert van Steveninck

Abstract

Many neural systems extend their dynamic range by adaptation. We ex(cid:173) amine the timescales of adaptation in the context of dynamically mod(cid:173) ulated rapidly-varying stimuli, and demonstrate in the fly visual system that adaptation to the statistical ensemble of the stimulus dynamically maximizes information transmission about the time-dependent stimulus. Further, while the rate response has long transients, the adaptation takes place on timescales consistent with optimal variance estimation.