TY  - JOUR
A1  - Wibral, Michael
A1  - Pampu, Nicolae
A1  - Priesemann, Viola
A1  - Siebenhühner, Felix
A1  - Seiwert, Hannes
A1  - Lindner, Michael
A1  - Lizier, Joseph T.
A1  - Vicente, Raul
T1  - Measuring information-transfer delays
T2  - PLoS One
N2  - In complex networks such as gene networks, traffic systems or brain circuits it is important to understand how long it takes for the different parts of the network to effectively influence one another. In the brain, for example, axonal delays between brain areas can amount to several tens of milliseconds, adding an intrinsic component to any timing-based processing of information. Inferring neural interaction delays is thus needed to interpret the information transfer revealed by any analysis of directed interactions across brain structures. However, a robust estimation of interaction delays from neural activity faces several challenges if modeling assumptions on interaction mechanisms are wrong or cannot be made. Here, we propose a robust estimator for neuronal interaction delays rooted in an information-theoretic framework, which allows a model-free exploration of interactions. In particular, we extend transfer entropy to account for delayed source-target interactions, while crucially retaining the conditioning on the embedded target state at the immediately previous time step. We prove that this particular extension is indeed guaranteed to identify interaction delays between two coupled systems and is the only relevant option in keeping with Wiener’s principle of causality. We demonstrate the performance of our approach in detecting interaction delays on finite data by numerical simulations of stochastic and deterministic processes, as well as on local field potential recordings. We also show the ability of the extended transfer entropy to detect the presence of multiple delays, as well as feedback loops. While evaluated on neuroscience data, we expect the estimator to be useful in other fields dealing with network dynamics.
Y1  - 2013
UR  - http://publikationen.ub.uni-frankfurt.de/frontdoor/index/index/docId/25663
UR  - https://nbn-resolving.org/urn:nbn:de:hebis:30:3-256630
SN  - 1932-6203
N1  - Copyright: © 2013 Wibral et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
VL  - 8
IS  - (2): e55809
SP  - 1
EP  - 19
PB  - PLoS
CY  - Lawrence, Kan.
ER  -