Acetylcholine in cortical inference
Journal
Neural Networks
Journal Volume
15
Journal Issue
44657
Pages
719-730
Date Issued
2002
Author(s)
Dayan P.
Abstract
Acetylcholine (ACh) plays an important role in a wide variety of cognitive tasks, such as perception, selective attention, associative learning, and memory. Extensive experimental and theoretical work in tasks involving learning and memory has suggested that ACh reports on unfamiliarity and controls plasticity and effective network connectivity. Based on these computational and implementational insights, we develop a theory of cholinergic modulation in perceptual inference. We propose that ACh levels reflect the uncertainty associated with top-down information, and have the effect of modulating the interaction between top-down and bottom-up processing in determining the appropriate neural representations for inputs. We illustrate our proposal by means of an hierarchical hidden Markov model, showing that cholinergic modulation of contextual information leads to appropriate perceptual inference. Copyright © 2002 Elsevier Science Ltd.
Subjects
Acetylcholine; Attention; Hidden Markov model; Neuromodulation; Perception; Representational inference
SDGs
Other Subjects
Cognitive systems; Neurology; Cholinergic modulation; Neural networks; acetylcholine; acetylcholine; acetylcholine brain level; algorithm; article; attention; brain cortex; cholinergic activity; hallucination; human; information processing; model; neuromodulation; perception; priority journal; probability; sensory stimulation; stimulus; theory; animal; biological model; brain cortex; physiology; review; Acetylcholine; Animal; Cerebral Cortex; Human; Markov Chains; Models, Neurological; Support, Non-U.S. Gov't; Support, U.S. Gov't, Non-P.H.S.; Animals; Humans; Markov Chains
Type
journal article