Metabolic cost as an organizing principle for cooperative learning
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Date
2013-05
Publication Type
Journal Article
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yes
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Abstract
This article investigates how neurons can use metabolic cost to facilitate learning at a population level. Although decision-making by individual neurons has been extensively studied, questions regarding how neurons should behave to cooperate effectively remain largely unaddressed. Under assumptions that capture a few basic features of cortical neurons, we show that constraining reward maximization by metabolic cost aligns the information content of actions with their expected reward. Thus, metabolic cost provides a mechanism whereby neurons encode expected reward into their outputs. Further, aside from reducing energy expenditures, imposing a tight metabolic constraint also increases the accuracy of empirical estimates of rewards, increasing the robustness of distributed learning. Finally, we present two implementations of metabolically constrained learning that confirm our theoretical finding. These results suggest that metabolic cost may be an organizing principle underlying the neural code, and may also provide a useful guide to the design and analysis of other cooperating populations.
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published
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Volume
16 (2-3)
Pages / Article No.
1350012
Publisher
World Scientific
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Subject
Neural code; Information theory; Constrained reward maximization; Synaptic plasticity; Reinforcement learning; Metabolic cost
Organisational unit
03659 - Buhmann, Joachim M. (emeritus) / Buhmann, Joachim M. (emeritus)
Notes
Received 20 February 2012, Revised 6 February 2013, Accepted 13 February 2013, Published 9 April 2013.