Synaptic plasticity enables adaptive self-tuning critical networks

During rest, the mammalian cortex displays spontaneous neural activity. Spiking of single neurons during rest has been described as irregular and asynchronous. In contrast, recent in vivo and in vitro population measures of spontaneous activity, using the LFP, EEG, MEG or fMRI suggest that the defau...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:PLoS computational biology 2015-01, Vol.11 (1), p.e1004043-e1004043
Main Authors: Stepp, Nigel, Plenz, Dietmar, Srinivasa, Narayan
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Action Potentials - physiology
Algorithms
Animals
Behavior
Computational Biology
Dynamical systems
Information processing
Mammals
Models, Neurological
Neural networks
Neurological research
Neuronal Plasticity - physiology
Neurons
Neurons - physiology
Neuroplasticity
Synaptic transmission
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Summary:During rest, the mammalian cortex displays spontaneous neural activity. Spiking of single neurons during rest has been described as irregular and asynchronous. In contrast, recent in vivo and in vitro population measures of spontaneous activity, using the LFP, EEG, MEG or fMRI suggest that the default state of the cortex is critical, manifested by spontaneous, scale-invariant, cascades of activity known as neuronal avalanches. Criticality keeps a network poised for optimal information processing, but this view seems to be difficult to reconcile with apparently irregular single neuron spiking. Here, we simulate a 10,000 neuron, deterministic, plastic network of spiking neurons. We show that a combination of short- and long-term synaptic plasticity enables these networks to exhibit criticality in the face of intrinsic, i.e. self-sustained, asynchronous spiking. Brief external perturbations lead to adaptive, long-term modification of intrinsic network connectivity through long-term excitatory plasticity, whereas long-term inhibitory plasticity enables rapid self-tuning of the network back to a critical state. The critical state is characterized by a branching parameter oscillating around unity, a critical exponent close to -3/2 and a long tail distribution of a self-similarity parameter between 0.5 and 1.
ISSN:1553-7358
1553-734X
1553-7358
DOI:10.1371/journal.pcbi.1004043