Talk:Neural coding

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figure on the right?

the section on "temporal coding" refers to a figure. where is it?

watson (talk) 08:58, 18 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The article history shows that a bot removed two images that lacked copyright information back in December. Looie496 (talk) 16:36, 18 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Should temporal correlation code, in which the spike timing and the interspike timing is measured, be included? (rather than just spike timing, where the precise timing of each spike (for each neuron) is determined for each (typically 50,100,300 ms) period) seunghwane (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 23:28, 13 May 2009 (UTC).[reply]

The word 'moment' should have a link or it should be precisely defined. seunghwane (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 23:48, 13 May 2009 (UTC).[reply]

The section on the temporal code does not refer to the origins of the temporal code, but to a text book - can anybody correct this? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 130.226.230.7 (talk) 10:13, 5 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Merger proposal

Another editor, not me, is proposing to merge Neural coding with Neural ensemble. --Tryptofish (talk) 19:27, 6 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose merger. I can see some opportunities to fix redundancies, but these seem to me to be sufficiently distinct topics to justify separate pages. Although I agree that most coding studies focus on ensembles, not all do, so there is some material on coding that exists outside of ensembles, and, ensembles have structural or anatomical features that are independent of coding. --Tryptofish (talk) 19:27, 6 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Since no one has spoken in favor of the merger, I'm going to remove the templates. --Tryptofish (talk) 19:40, 15 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Merger possibilities

In the "see also" section of this page, there are seven other pages, each dealing with a specific theory of neural coding. Is it a good idea to have all these separate pages, or should we consider merging all of those other pages into this one (essentially making each one a section of this page, when that section does not already exist)? I'm not yet making a formal merger proposal, but just gaging what other editors think. --Tryptofish (talk) 20:33, 22 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I checked and none of these seven other pages are longer than an (elaborate) section. I would support a merger proposal. Lova Falk talk 11:17, 24 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with you about that, and I now Support such a merger. I would consider it necessary to actually incorporate material from these other pages into this page, thereby expanding this page, for the merge to be appropriate. I'm going to formally template the pages, to discuss this proposal. --Tryptofish (talk) 22:35, 16 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Support it's all neural coding, this is like having my grocery list on five different pieces of paper. ADDENDUM: to expand a bit, I think these are sufficiently notable topics to deserve their own page, but none of these pages are developed enough to merit that, they're basically all summaries like in the main neural coding page. But I agree with trypto that we should actually merge, not delete the others if the claims are cited or obviously true Xurtio (talk) 09:44, 10 August 2010 (UTC).[reply]

I think sparse coding can be merged into the neural codin as sparse coding is a type of neural coding and neurons are exclusively involved in the neural coding.— Preceding unsigned comment added by 129.241.134.218 (talk • contribs) 02:57, 1 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

It's clear that the consensus supports this merge, and I apologize for being such a slowpoke, but I'll get around to it soon. Per the discussion below, I've added NeuroElectroDynamics to the proposed merger, but it should end up being no more than about one sentence here. --Tryptofish (talk) 15:58, 7 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Removing new NeuroElectroDynamics section

I am for the moment removing a section on NeuroElectroDynamics that has been added. The contents I am removing are:

NeuroElectroDynamics (NED) is a model that describes brain computations in terms of universal physical principles. Memory processes, information storage are related to physical machinery that keeps information unaltered for longer time periods in the brain embedded in neurons within distributions of electric charges at macromolecular level (e.g. proteins) <ref name="Aur">Aur, D. and Jog, M.S. 2010 ''Neuroelectrodynamics- Understanding The Brain Language''. IOS Press 2010</ref>. Reading (decoding) and writing information (coding) can be simultaneously performed by electric interactions mediated by neurotransmitter release. The coding phase includes changes in spatial rearrangement of electrical charges in macromolecular formations, determined by selective gene expression, conformational changes in proteins, polarizations, while the decoding phase can be related to alterations in transient charge density dynamics. NED highlights a general physical model of computation by interaction which is a non-Turing computational model and represents an alternative to current temporal coding models.

In order for this article to include this material, there should be evidence that it has drawn attention from other workers in the field. The book is not sufficient -- there should be either reviews or publication of articles on the underlying concepts in peer-reviewed journals. Looie496 (talk) 18:19, 6 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The content has been re-inserted. I have restored to status quo ante. Looie496 is right. This is not a comment on the merit of the theory. Wikipedia's sourcing policy, particularly when applied to biomedical articles (see this guideline), insists that new thought may be included only when it has been evaluated by uninvolved experts in peer-reviewed journals or university-level textbooks, and when its inclusion will not give it undue weight (see this fundamental policy).

If you make a change to an article, and it is reverted, polite practice here (per this essay) is to discuss the matter on the article's talk page. Please feel free to discuss this matter here, but the discussion will revolve around those policies I've linked to, not the merits or nature of the theory. --Anthonyhcole (talk) 05:31, 7 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I appreciate the good faith efforts of the new editor who added the material, but I have to agree with Looie and Anthony. I also think that these concerns apply to the linked page, which is referenced entirely to the research of a single laboratory group. In the talk section above, I raised the idea of merging numerous pages, and I have to admit that I am hugely slow in getting around to acting upon it, but I think that NeuroElectroDynamics should be included in the merge as well, albeit only as a brief mention here, and mainly to make the other page a redirect. --Tryptofish (talk) 15:52, 7 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I feel that authors of NeuroElectroDynamics are right. How is temporal information stored in the brain? In order to replicate their measurements one has to perform invivo experiments and to insert four electrodes close to the cell. Many recordings use single electrodes. The mathematical model is one thing, their experiment shows patterns in spikes. I agree that the entire paragraph can be altered; however it should not be entirely deleted — Preceding unsigned comment added by Goodwillein (talk • contribs) 17:14, 7 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Additionally, there are many 'pieces of work' that can be referenced, their published papers in peer reviewed journals and the IOS book as required (see this fundamental policy). — Preceding unsigned comment added by Goodwillein (talk • contribs) 18:03, 7 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Concerning peer-reviewed publications, I find only a few papers in minor journals such as Neural Processing Letters and BMC Neuroscience, and even those have not been cited by anybody except Aur and Jog. I have some respect for Mandar Jog due to the very interesting work he did when he was in Ann Graybiel's lab, but I see no evidence that this particular work has garnered any attention except from the people who are doing it. Looie496 (talk) 18:51, 7 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Your discussion regarding authors is not relevant. Have you read their book before deleting what I inserted? Concerning peer-reviewed publications and high ISI ranking journals in biomedical field you should read http://www.nature.com/nmeth/journal/v8/n2/full/nmeth0211-104.html. I feel that would be fair to reference in neural coding all current trends in the field (Correlation coding, Independent-spike coding, Phase-of-firing code, Population coding, Rate coding, Sparse coding, Temporal coding and NeuroElectroDynamics)and see what the future holds for any of them. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Goodwillein (talk • contribs) 19:27, 7 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Goodwillein, I actually agree with you that all of these models should be included in this page, including (briefly) NED. The discussion here is more a matter of how much space within the page any given model should receive. Part of this is addressed in WP:UNDUE, which you linked above, and I think that the take-home message about how both Anthony and you referred to it is that there is nothing wrong (at least in my opinion) with including it, but that it is not helpful to a general public audience to devote an entire section to it, because doing so makes it seem more agreed-upon, by all of the researchers in the field, than it really is. Please also take a look at WP:N and WP:PSTS. You will see there that the way Wikipedia looks at material is somewhat different than how scientific journals do. At Wikipedia, we have to rely upon secondary sources (defined at PSTS) to indicate whether an idea from one research group has become sufficiently widely accepted that it has been taken up by other scholars, independent of those who first proposed it. --Tryptofish (talk) 20:08, 7 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Tryptofish, I also agree with you, please select what you would like to see from what I inserted that can be (briefly) added. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Goodwillein (talk • contribs) 20:26, 7 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks. Per #Merger possibilities just above, I'll give that a try, but when I get around to it, so not today. --Tryptofish (talk) 20:31, 7 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Tryptofish, I think that a better solution would be to add here what is specific in each case for neural coding and let their pages unchanged since all seem to add different relevant details that cannot be included here.

In case of NeuroElectroDynamics specific for coding and decoding information would be: "The coding phase includes changes in spatial rearrangement of electrical charges in macromolecular complexes of neurons, determined by selective gene expression, conformational changes in proteins, polarizations. The decoding  phase can be related to alterations in transient charge density dynamics"

If you agree I can add. Thanks