Relating information capacity to a biophysical model for blowfly photoreceptors

Photoreceptors measure and communicate information about visual stimuli to other neurons. In this process, the visual signal is converted between many different physical states. We present a communication channel model that d escribes transmission and degradation of the visual signal in the blowfly p hotoreceptor cell. The model is a cascade of linear systems and noise sourc es; these elements are derived from fundamental principles when possible, a nd parameters of the model are estimated from physiological data. We comput e capacity and bit-energy using the model. Our results indicate that photon shot noise and channel noise are the dominant noise sources in blowfly pho totransduction. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.