Information processing in biological systems - Ilya Nemenman: Theoretical Biophysics @ Emory

One of the universal functions performed at all levels of biological organization is information processing and shaping of the response. This is known under various names, such as signaling, signal transduction, learning, adaptation, and so on. In different systems, it is important to understand: What are the limits to biological information processing? Which features of the response carry information about the signal, and vice versa? and Which structural features of the system control its information-processing abilities? These questions are naturally asked in the language of information theory. Working with different experimental groups, we have asked these questions in a variety of biological systems. In some we got answers, and we are still working on the others. For example, to the left, one can see the plot of the amount of information transmitted by the fly visual motion sensitive neuron that as a function of the accuracy of the spike timing resolution. Clearly, positioning of a

One of the universal functions performed at all levels of biological organization is information processing and shaping of the response. This is known under various names, such as signaling, signal transduction, learning, adaptation, and so on. In different systems, it is important to understand: What are the limits to biological information processing? Which features of the response carry information about the signal, and vice versa? and Which structural features of the system control its information-processing abilities? These questions are naturally asked in the language of information theo