Signaling contours by neuromorphic wave propagation

We describe a neuromorphic retina that signals a luminance edge as a spike. In a fast process, the luminance profile of the receptor layer determines the membrane potential of the ganglion cells and their individual, adjustable spiking thresholds. In a slower process, a wave-propagation process, the charge of ganglion cells with high membrane potential will propagate toward neighboring cells with low membrane potential and low spiking threshold, thus signaling the edge as a spike. Following that, the signaled edge (or contour) actively propagates across the retinal map. The retinal signal can be used for a contour-integration or a contour-propagation approach.

Authors and Affiliations

1. Department of Psychology, University of California Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara CA, USA

   Christoph Rasche

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Christoph Rasche.

Acknowledgments.

The study has been carried out in Miguel Eckstein’s lab at UCSB, funded by NIH-RO1 53455, NASA NAG 9-1157, NSF 0135118. The author wishes to thank Miguel Eckstein for generous support, Giacomo Indiveri for comments on the circuit diagram, and the anonymous reviewers for helping to clarify quite a number of discussion points.

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