Citation

Maia PD, Kutz JN. J. Comput. Neurosci. 2017; 42(3): 323-347.

Affiliation

Department of Applied Mathematics, University of Washington, Seattle, WA, 98195-3925, USA.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2017, Holtzbrinck Springer Nature Publishing Group)

DOI

10.1007/s10827-017-0643-y

PMID

28393281

Abstract

The presence of diffuse Focal Axonal Swellings (FAS) is a hallmark cellular feature in many neurological diseases and traumatic brain injury. Among other things, the FAS have a significant impact on spike-train encodings that propagate through the affected neurons, leading to compromised signal processing on a neuronal network level. This work merges, for the first time, three fields of study: (i) signal processing in excitatory-inhibitory (EI) networks of neurons via population codes, (ii) decision-making theory driven by the production of evidence from stimulus, and (iii) compromised spike-train propagation through FAS. As such, we demonstrate a mathematical architecture capable of characterizing compromised decision-making driven by cellular mechanisms. The computational model also leads to several novel predictions and diagnostics for understanding injury level and cognitive deficits, including a key finding that decision-making reaction times, rather than accuracy, are indicative of network level damage. The results have a number of translational implications, including that the level of network damage can be characterized by the reaction times in simple cognitive and motor tests.

Language: en

Keywords

Alzheimer; Cognitive deficits; Decision making; Focal Axonal Swellings; Multiple sclerosis; Neural networks; Neurological diseases; Parkinson; Traumatic brain injury