Mapping Input Noise to Escape Noise in Integrate-and-fire neurons: A Level-Crossing Approach

TL;DR

This paper derives an approximate, efficient method to map colored input noise to escape noise in integrate-and-fire neurons using level-crossing theory, improving accuracy over previous models.

Contribution

It introduces a second-order decoupling approximation for the first-passage-time density, enhancing the modeling of escape noise in neurons with colored input noise.

Findings

Accurately predicts first-passage-time and interspike interval densities.

Provides an exact formula for zero-lag auto-correlation of level crossings.

Improves agreement with simulations over previous approximations.

Abstract

Noise in spiking neurons is commonly modeled by a noisy input current or by generating output spikes stochastically with a voltage-dependent hazard rate ("escape noise"). While input noise lends itself to modeling biophysical noise processes, the phenomenological escape noise is mathematically more tractable. Using the level-crossing theory for differentiable Gaussian processes, we derive an approximate mapping between colored input noise and escape noise in leaky integrate-and-fire neurons. This mapping requires the first-passage-time (FPT) density of an overdamped Brownian particle driven by colored noise with respect to an arbitrarily moving boundary. Starting from the Wiener-Rice series for the FPT density, we apply the second-order decoupling approximation of Stratonovich to the case of moving boundaries and derive a simplified hazard-rate representation that is local in time and numerically efficient. This simplification requires the calculation of the non-stationary auto-correlation function of the level-crossing process: For exponentially correlated input noise (Ornstein-Uhlenbeck process), we obtain an exact formula for the zero-lag auto-correlation as a function of noise parameters, mean membrane potential and its speed, as well as an exponential approximation of the full auto-correlation function. The theory well predicts the FPT and interspike interval densities as well as the population activities obtained from simulations with time-dependent stimulus or boundary. The agreement with simulations is strongly enhanced compared to a first-order decoupling approximation that neglects correlations between level crossings. The second-order approximation also improves upon a previously proposed theory in the subthreshold regime. Depending on a simplicity-accuracy trade-off, all considered approximations represent useful mappings from colored input noise to escape noise.