Fluctuation-dissipation relations for spiking neurons

TL;DR

This paper derives fluctuation-dissipation relations for spiking neuron models, linking spontaneous neural activity to stimulus response, enabling better understanding and inference of neural dynamics from observed data.

Contribution

It introduces new fluctuation-dissipation relations for leaky integrate-and-fire neuron models, including complex variants with adaptation and correlated noise.

Findings

Derived FDRs relate spike and voltage correlations to firing rate susceptibility.

FDRs enable inference of neural response properties from spontaneous activity.

Applicable to models with arbitrary voltage dependence and correlated noise.

Abstract

Spontaneous fluctuations and stimulus response are essential features of neural functioning but how they are connected is poorly understood. I derive fluctuation-dissipation relations (FDR) between the spontaneous spike and voltage correlations and the firing rate susceptibility for i) the leaky integrate-and-fire (IF) model with white noise; ii) an IF model with arbitrary voltage dependence, an adaptation current, and correlated noise. The FDRs can be used to derive correlation statistics or to infer the system's response from observations of its spontaneous activity.