{
  "id": 12225544,
  "title": "Learning continuous updating and control of neural population activities from sparse time samples",
  "url": "https://urgent.news/2026/10/05/learning-continuous-updating-and-control-of-neural-population",
  "topic": "science",
  "section": "Science",
  "published": "2026-10-05T00:00:00.000Z",
  "source": {
    "name": "bioRxiv",
    "slug": "biorxiv",
    "url": "https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.09.28.754781v1?rss=1"
  },
  "original_language": "en",
  "account": "Brain cells continuously adjust their internal representations of sensory and motor variables. For instance, during a saccade, the positions of visual stimuli in the eye's retina shift, and this shift is corrected through a process known as transsaccadic updating. This correction is guided by a signal called the corollary discharge (CD), which is produced by the saccade motor command.\n\nInitially, researchers trained artificial neural networks to execute this updating process by providing the desired time courses of the stimuli's positions at every moment. However, this approach may not be realistic because, before a system can learn the task, it might not have access to the complete time course of the stimuli's positions. Additionally, the actual visual inputs are often delayed and thus incorrect.\n\nIn this study, the researchers demonstrated that by incorporating a continuity equation into the network's loss function, the networks could be trained using only the pre- and post-saccadic retinotopic positions of the stimuli, without specifying the intermediate transitions. Furthermore, the researchers found that this method allowed the simultaneous learning of both the network's connectivity patterns and the CD control signal.\n\nThe continuity equation, which the researchers applied to waves of neural population activities—representations of variables distributed across the network—suggests that distributed representations, which are common in the brain, may offer an advantage in learning and adapting to changes in the environment.",
  "summary": "The brain frequently updates or controls its internal representations of sensory or motor variables over time. An example is transsaccadic updating of stimuli's retinotopic positions: When the eye moves in one direction, the positions are updated continuously in the opposite direction, and the process is controlled by the corollary discharge (CD) of the saccade motor command. We previously…",
  "key_points": [],
  "editors_take": null,
  "illustration": null,
  "coverage": {
    "outlets": 1,
    "also_reported_by": []
  },
  "ai_generated": true,
  "disclaimer": "Summaries, key points and the editor’s take are written by software from other outlets’ reporting and may contain errors — always check the linked original."
}