Reconstructing neural dynamics using data assimilation with multiple models

George Mason University - Fairfax, VA, USA

Received: 29 July 2014
Accepted: 5 September 2014

Abstract

Assimilation of data with models of physical processes is a critical component of modern scientific analysis. In recent years, nonlinear versions of Kalman filtering have been developed, in addition to methods that estimate model parameters in parallel with the system state. We propose a substantial extension of these tools to deal with the specific case of unmodeled variables, when training data from the variable is avaiable. The method uses a stack of several, nonidentical copies of a physical model to jointly reconstruct the variable in question. We demonstrate the ability of this technique to accurately recover an unmodeled experimental quantity, such as an ion concentration, from a single voltage trace after the training period is completed. The method is applied to reconstruct the potassium concentration in a neural culture from multielectrode array voltage measurements.