Intra-Thalamic and Thalamocortical Connectivity: Potential Implication for Deep Learning

Contrary to the traditional view that the thalamus acts as a passive relay station of sensory information to the cortex, a number of experimental studies have demonstrated the effects of peri-geniculate and cortico-thalamic projections on the transmission of visual input. In the present study, we implemented a mechanistic model to facilitate the understanding of peri-geniculate and cortico-thalamic effects on the transfer function of geniculate cells and their firing patterns. As a result, the model successfully captures some fundamental properties of early-stage visual processing in mammalian brain. We conclude, therefore, that the thalamus is not a passive relay center and the intra-thalamic circuitry is of great importance to biological vision. In summary, intra-thalamic and thalamocortical circuitries have implications in early-stage visual processing, and could constitute a valid tool for refining information relay and compression in artificial neural networks (ANN), leading to deep learning models of higher performance.