Representational capacity of a set of independent neurons

Abstract

The capacity with which a system of independent neuron-like units represents a given set of stimuli is studied by calculating the mutual information between the stimuli and the neural responses. Both discrete noiseless and continuous noisy neurons are analyzed. In both cases, the information grows monotonically with the number of neurons considered. Under the assumption that neurons are independent, the mutual information rises linearly from zero, and approaches exponentially its maximum value. We find the dependence of the initial slope on the number of stimuli and on the sparseness of the representation.