Technical Program

Paper Detail

Paper: PS-1A.44
Session: Poster Session 1A
Location: Symphony/Overture
Session Time: Thursday, September 6, 16:30 - 18:30
Presentation Time:Thursday, September 6, 16:30 - 18:30
Presentation: Poster
Publication: 2018 Conference on Cognitive Computational Neuroscience, 5-8 September 2018, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Paper Title: Predictive Coding Produces Alpha-band Rhythmic Travelling Waves
Manuscript:  Click here to view manuscript
DOI: https://doi.org/10.32470/CCN.2018.1033-0
Authors: Andrea Alamia, Rufin VanRullen, CNRS - Université de Toulouse, France
Abstract: Predictive coding is a key mechanism to understand the computational processes underlying brain functioning: in a hierarchical network, higher layers predict the activity of lower layers, and the unexplained residuals (i.e. prediction errors) are sent through. At CCN’17 we showed that a simple 2-layers predictive coding model of visual cortex, with physiological communication delays between layers, gives rise to alpha-band rhythms (8-12Hz), similar to experimental observations. We now demonstrate that a multi-layer version of the same model can explain the occurrence of oscillatory travelling waves across layers, both feedforward (during visual stimulation) and backward (during rest). Remarkably, the predictions of our model are matched by the analysis of two independent EEG datasets, in which we observed oscillatory travelling waves. In conclusion, we suggest that predictive coding could be the origin of important features of neuronal activity, such as alpha rhythms and travelling waves.