 Quote by zoobyshoe
Suppose you can tell me exactly: the predicting neurons do this and the data neurons do that, and there's this difference between the two.
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There aren't these two types of neurons. Instead the brain generates a predictive state in the neurons - a mental image of what is likely to happen - and then what happens gets matched against the prediction.
This happens all the way down to the "input" level as shown by the way retinal ganglion cells fire off ahead of an expected event.
Markus Meister, Ph.D., a professor of molecular and cellular biology at Harvard University, studies this anticipatory mechanism and other aspects of signal processing in the retina. In a paper in the journal Nature, he and his colleagues showed how nerve cells in the retina respond most actively to the leading edge of a moving object. They also fire slightly ahead of it.
http://www.bmesphotos.org/WhitakerAr...t/meister.html |