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Digital selection and analogue amplification coexist in a cortex-inspired silicon circuit

Nature volume 405, pages 947–951 (2000)Cite this article

An Erratum to this article was published on 21 December 2000

Abstract

Digital circuits such as the flip-flop use feedback to achieve multi-stability and nonlinearity to restore signals to logical levels, for example 0 and 1. Analogue feedback circuits are generally designed to operate linearly, so that signals are over a range, and the response is unique. By contrast, the response of cortical circuits to sensory stimulation can be both multistable and graded1,2,3,4. We propose that the neocortex combines digital selection of an active set of neurons with analogue response by dynamically varying the positive feedback inherent in its recurrent connections. Strong positive feedback causes differential instabilities that drive the selection of a set of active neurons under the constraints embedded in the synaptic weights. Once selected, the active neurons generate weaker, stable feedback that provides analogue amplification of the input. Here we present our model of cortical processing as an electronic circuit that emulates this hybrid operation, and so is able to perform computations that are similar to stimulus selection, gain modulation and spatiotemporal pattern generation in the neocortex.

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Figure 1: Silicon implementation of a recurrent network with a ring architecture.
Figure 2: Modulation of tuned population response.
Figure 3: Multistability of selection.

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Acknowledgements

We acknowledge the support of the Swiss National Science Foundation SPP Program, Lucent Technologies and MIT. We thank A. Andreou, J. Kramer, D. Lee, C. Brody, M. Fee, D. Tank, P. Sinha, S. Roweis and S.-C. Liu for discussions about the circuits and current-mode design.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Neuroinformatics ETHZ/UNIZ , Winterthurerstrasse 190, Zürich , 8057, Switzerland

    Richard H. R. Hahnloser, Misha A. Mahowald & Rodney J. Douglas

  2. Bell Laboratories, Murray Hill, 07974, New Jersey, USA

    Rahul Sarpeshkar & H. Sebastian Seung

  3. Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences,

    Richard H. R. Hahnloser & H. Sebastian Seung

  4. Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, MIT, Cambridge, 02139, Massachusetts, USA

    Rahul Sarpeshkar

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Correspondence to Richard H. R. Hahnloser.

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Hahnloser, R., Sarpeshkar, R., Mahowald, M. et al. Digital selection and analogue amplification coexist in a cortex-inspired silicon circuit. Nature 405, 947–951 (2000). https://doi.org/10.1038/35016072

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