Estimating light edge velocity based on retinal ganglion cell spike trains
Name
191914771-MIT.pdf
Description
Full printable version
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6.37 MB
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Author(s)
Eisenman, Adam
Advisor(s)
John L. Wyatt.
Date Issued
2007
Publisher
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Abstract
This thesis is intended to present a specific sub-problem of a larger one we call the 'Inverse Problem'. We wish to estimate the velocity (speed and direction) of an edge of light which is moving on the photoreceptor layer of a rabbit retinal patch. We make these estimates based solely on the electrical response measured from the retinal ganglion cells (RGCs). We present various algorithms for doing so and present sensitivity analysis of such algorithms. We test the performance of the algorithms on data recorded from retina and on data produced by simulation. We find that we are able to extract enough information about the edge velocity from ON and OFF RGCs when the edge of light is wide. However, our best algorithm's performance decays significantly as the edge of light gets narrower. This leads us to develop algorithms that use ON-OFF directionally selective (DS) cells in conjunction with non-directional ON and OFF cells to produce better estimates of the velocity for narrow edges of light. In addition, we develop a model to simulate the response of a DS cell to 1-dimensional light motion.
Description
Thesis (S.M.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, 2007.
This electronic version was submitted by the student author. The certified thesis is available in the Institute Archives and Special Collections.
Includes bibliographical references (p. 136-137).
Subjects
Electrical Engineering and Computer Science.
MIT Department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science
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