Principles of Neural Design
Principles
Compute with chemistry
Compute directly with analog primitives
Combine analog and pulsatile processing
Sparsify
Send only what is needed
Send at the lowest acceptable rate
Minimize wire
Make neural components irreducibly small
Complicate
Adapt, match, learn, and forget
Principles of Neural Design
Peter Sterling and Simon Laughlin
The MIT Press
Cambridge, Massachusetts
London, England
© 2015 Massachusetts Institute of Technology
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Sterling, Peter (Professor of neuroscience), author.
Principles of neural design / Peter Sterling and Simon Laughlin.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-262-02870-7 (hardcover : alk. paper)
I. Laughlin, Simon, author. II. Title.
[DNLM: 1. Brain — physiology. 2. Learning. 3. Neural Pathways. WL 300]
QP376
612.8’2 — dc23
p. ; cm.
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2014031498
For Sally Zigmond and Barbara Laughlin
Contents
ix
Preface
Acknowledgments
xiii
Introduction
xi
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
What Engineers Know about Design
1
Why an Animal Needs a Brain
11
Why a Bigger Brain?
41
How Bigger Brains Are Organized
57
Information Processing: From Molecules to Molecular Circuits
105
Information Processing in Protein Circuits
125
Design of Neurons
155
How Photoreceptors Optimize the Capture of Visual Information
195
The Fly Lamina: An Efficient Interface for High-Speed Vision
235
10
Design of Neural Circuits: Recoding Analogue Signals to Pulsatile
265
11
Principles of Retinal Design
277
12
Beyond the Retina: Pathways to Perception and Action
323
13
Principles of Efficient Wiring
363
14
Learning as Design/Design of Learning
399
15
Summary and Conclusions
433
445
447
Principles of Neural Design
Notes
References
Index
519
465