Temporal-to-spatial dynamic mapping, flexible recognition, and temporal correlations in an olfactory cortex model

Abstract.

 This paper proposes temporal-to-spatial dynamic mapping inspired by neural dynamics of the olfactory cortex. In our model the temporal structure of olfactory-bulb patterns is mapped to the spatial dynamics of the ensemble of cortical neurons. This mapping is based on the following biological mechanism: while anterior part of piriform cortex can be excited by the afferent input alone, the posterior areas require both afferent and association signals, which are temporally correlated in a specific way. One of the functional types of the neurons in our model corresponds to the cortical spatial dynamics and encodes odor components, and another represents temporal activity of association-fiber signals, which, we suggest, may be relevant to the encoding of odor concentrations. The temporal-to-spatial mapping and distributed representation of the model enable simultaneous rough cluster classification and fine recognition of patterns within a cluster as parts of the same dynamic process. The model is able to extract and segment the components of complex odor patterns which are spatiotemporal sequences of neural activity.