paper available: Size principle and Information theory
Walter Senn
wsenn at iam.unibe.ch
Tue Oct 8 04:02:16 EDT 1996
The following paper (to appear in Biol. Cybern.) is now available via aftp:
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Size Principle and Information Theory
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by W.Senn, K. Wyler, H.P. Clamann, J. Kleinle, H.-R. Luescher, L. Mueller
Abstract:
The several hundreds motor units of a single skeletal muscle may be recruited
according to different strategies. From all possible recruitment strategies
nature selected the simplest one: in most actions of a vertebrate skeletal
muscle the recruitment of its motor units is by increasing size.
This so-called Size Principle permits a high precision in muscle force
generation since small muscle forces are produced exclusively by small motor
units. Larger motor units are only activated if the total muscle force has
already reached certain critical levels.
We show that this recruitment by size is not only optimal in precision but also
optimal in an information theoretical sense.
We consider the motoneuron pool as an encoder generating a parallel binary code
from a common input e.g. from CNS to that pool. The parallel motoneuron code
is sent further down through the motoneuron axons to the muscle.
We show that the optimization of this parallel motoneuron code with respect to
its information content is equivalent to the recruitment of motor units by
size. Moreover, a maximal information content of the motoneuron code is
equivalent to a minimal expected error in muscle force generation.
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Retrieval procedure:
unix> ftp iamftp.unibe.ch
Name: anonymous Password: {your e-mail address}
ftp> cd pub/braintool/publications
ftp> get InfoTheory.ps.gz
ftp> quit
unix> gunzip InfoTheory.ps.gz
e.g. unix> lpr paper_InfoTheory.ps
Or just to have a look at the www-site
http://iamwww.unibe.ch:80/~brainwww/publications/
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