Characterizing rate adaptation as fractional differentiation

Brian Lundstrom

University of Washington, Seattle, USA


Although commonly observed, simple yet precise descriptions of rate adaptation remain illusive. Using data from the rat cortex and thalamus, we characterize rate adaptation as the mathematical operation of fractional differentiation, a multiple time scale process with a frequency-independent phase advance. In this way, rate adaptation can be approximated as a simple linear filter specified by a single parameter.

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