Causal interactions and delays in a neuronal ensemble

TL;DR

This paper introduces a new measure based on nonlinear Granger causality to analyze causal interactions and delays in a neural system mimicking sensory cortex, revealing how transmission delays affect causal relevance.

Contribution

It proposes a novel nonlinear causality measure and interprets how transmission delays influence causal interactions in neural ensembles.

Findings

Causal interactions vary with transmission delays.

The new measure captures collective neural behavior.

Transmission delays impact causally relevant interactions.

Abstract

We analyze a neural system which mimics a sensorial cortex, with different input characteristics, in presence of transmission delays. We propose a new measure to characterize collective behavior, based on the nonlinear extension of the concept of Granger causality, and an interpretation is given of the variation of the percentage of the causally relevant interactions with transmission delays.