Neurala pulser är exakt tajmade i flugans naturliga miljö

Ända sedan 1926 då man började mäta pulser i djurs neuroner, har man trott att det är antal pulser per tidsenhet som är det viktiga. Man kunde inte se någon precision i tajmingen direkt. Nu har man simulerat en flugas naturliga omgivning mer precist, och si, då avfyras pulserna med stor precision.

“Biological organisms have an interest in conserving energy,” Nemenman said. “Fly eyes account for about one-tenth of the fly’s energy consumption. The fly wants to be very efficient, but it costs energy and molecular resources to emit many precise spikes in the neurons. “If you are presenting simple stimuli where little changes with time, then the most efficient way to encode them may be to generate few randomly positioned spikes, which would be sufficient to convey whatever small changes, if any, happened. Similarly, if the stimulus is unnaturally fast, the neurons may not be able to encode it well.