Efficient coding of natural images with a population of noisy Linear-Nonlinear neurons

Efficient coding provides a powerful principle for explaining early sensory coding. Most attempts to test this principle have been limited to linear, noiseless models, and when applied to natural images, have yielded oriented filters consistent with responses in primary visual cortex. Here we show that an efficient coding model that incorporates biologically realistic ingredients - input and output noise, nonlinear response functions, and a metabolic cost on the firing rate - predicts receptive fields and response nonlinearities similar to those observed in the retina. Specifically, we develop numerical methods for simultaneously learning the linear filters and response nonlinearities of a population of model neurons, so as to maximize information transmission subject to metabolic costs. When applied to an ensemble of natural images, the method yields filters that are center-surround and nonlinearities that are rectifying. The filters are organized into two populations, with On- and Off-centers, which independently tile the visual space. As observed in the primate retina, the Off-center neurons are more numerous and have filters with smaller spatial extent. In the absence of noise, our method reduces to a generalized version of independent components analysis, with an adapted nonlinear "contrast" function; in this case, the optimal filters are localized and oriented.