Neural Receptive Fields, Stimulus Space Embedding and Effective Geometry of Scale-Free Networks

Understanding how receptive fields emerge and organize within brain networks and how neural dynamics couple with stimuli space is fundamental to neuroscience. Models often rely on fine-tuning connectivity to match empirical data, which may limit biological plausibility. Here we propose a physiologically grounded alternative where receptive fields and population-level attractor dynamics arise naturally from the effective hyperbolic geometry of scale-free networks. By associating stimulus space with the boundary of a hyperbolic embedding, we simulate neural dynamics using rate-based and spiking models, revealing localized activity patterns that reflect stimulus space structure without synaptic fine-tuning. The resulting receptive fields follow experimentally observed statistics and properties, and their sizes depends on neuron’s connectivity degree. The model generalizes across stimuli dimensionalities and various modalities, such as orientation and place selectivity. Experimental analyses of hippocampal place fields recorded on a linear track support these findings. This framework offers a novel organizing principle linking network structure, stimulus space encoding, and neural dynamics, providing insights into receptive field formation across diverse brain areas.