Computational Neuroscience

From 2003 until 2007, I worked on my PhD in the research group of Andreas Herz. Research topic was information processing of temporal signals in sensory systems. One particular example is time-scale invariance: the ability to recognize signals when their relative duration is varied. The grasshopper Chorthippus biguttulus produces syllable-pause sequences which vary up to 300% in duration without limiting the stimulus recognition. We have found a putative neuronal mechanism which can explain this phenomenon.

In 2005, I visited Tali Tishby at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, studying the relation between linear dynamic systems and information theory. We found that the state space of linear systems can be regarded as an information bottleneck. This may be a step towards a statistical theory of optimal adaptive behavior.

Together with Henning Sprekeler, I was able to show that temporally local predictive coding is - under certain conditions - equivalent to slow features analysis, an established method that can model receptive field properties in cortex.


I deciphered (some of) the neural code behind discriminating "good" and "bad" mating songs of this grasshopper.

Journal articles

  • F. Creutzig, H. Sprekeler (2008)
    Predictive Coding and the Slowness Principle: an Information-Theoretic Approach
    Neural Computation 20(4): 1026-1041 Abstract.

  • F. Creutzig, A. Globerson, N. Tishby (2009)
    The Past-Future Information Bottleneck of Dynamical Systems
    Physical Review E 79, 041925.Featured in the Virtual Journal of Biological Physics Research. Abstract.

  • F. Creutzig, S. Wohlgemuth, A. Stumpner, J. Benda, B. Ronacher, A. V. M. Herz (2009)
    Time-Scale Invariant Representation of Acoustic Communication Signals by a Bursting Neuron

    Journal of Neuroscience, 29(8): 2575:2580
    (web). Abstract.

  • F. Creutzig, J. Benda, S. Wohlgemuth, A. Stumpner, B. Ronacher, A. V. M. Herz (2010)
    Timescale-invariant pattern recognition by feed-forward inhibition and parallel signal processing

    Neural Computation 22(6):1493-1510
    (web). Abstract.


Book contributions

  • F. Creutzig (2009)
    From predictive coding to percept - a computational approach
    In: "Geist und Wissenschaft. Interdisziplinäre Perspektiven" (Hrsg. Ansgar Lyssy), Peter-Lang-Verlag.

    Abstract.


Posters


Conference talks

  • Time-Warp Invariant Stimulus Decoding in an Insect Auditory System?
    Featured talk, CNS 2006, Edinburgh

  • Projecting the Past into the Future: the State Space of Dynamical Systems as an Information Bottleneck Workshop: Revealing Hidden Elements of Dynamical Systems, NIPS 2006, Vancouver


PhD Thesis


Nerdy: Erdös number 4