Related papers: Global and local synaptic regulation determine the…
Neuronal circuits internally regulate electrical signaling via a host of homeostatic mechanisms. Two prominent mechanisms, synaptic scaling and structural plasticity, are believed to maintain average activity within an operating range by…
In recent years, there have been many computational simulations of spontaneous neural dynamics. Here, we explore a model of spontaneous neural dynamics and allow it to control a virtual agent moving in a simple environment. This setup…
Rich, spontaneous brain activity has been observed across a range of different temporal and spatial scales. These dynamics are thought to be important t for efficient neural functioning. Experimental evidence suggests that these neural…
Cortical oscillations are thought to be involved in many cognitive functions and processes. Several mechanisms have been proposed to regulate oscillations. One prominent but understudied mechanism is gap-junctional coupling. Gap junctions…
We use a biophysical model of a local neuronal circuit to study the implications of synaptic plasticity for the detection of weak sensory stimuli. Networks with fast plastic coupling show behavior consistent with stochastic resonance.…
Neurons rely on two interdependent mechanisms, homeostasis and neuromodulation, to maintain robust and adaptable functionality. Calcium homeostasis stabilizes neuronal activity by adjusting ionic conductances, whereas neuromodulation…
Synaptic connections in neuronal circuits are modulated by pre- and post-synaptic spiking activity. Heuristic models of this process of synaptic plasticity can provide excellent fits to results from in-vitro experiments in which pre- and…
Large networks of spiking neurons show abrupt changes in their collective dynamics resembling phase transitions studied in statistical physics. An example of this phenomenon is the transition from irregular, noise-driven dynamics to…
The brain is believed to operate in part by making predictions about sensory stimuli and encoding deviations from these predictions in the activity of "prediction error neurons." This principle defines the widely influential theory of…
In view of ever-changing conditions both in the external world and in intrinsic brain states, maintaining the robustness of computations poses a challenge, adequate solutions to which we are only beginning to understand. At the level of…
Transient or partial synchronization can be used to do computations, although a fully synchronized network is frequently related to epileptic seizures. Here, we propose a homeostatic mechanism that is capable of maintaining a neuronal…
In neural circuits, synaptic strengths influence neuronal activity by shaping network dynamics, and neuronal activity influences synaptic strengths through activity-dependent plasticity. Motivated by this fact, we study a recurrent-network…
Feedback loops are essential for regulating cell proliferation and maintaining the delicate balance between cell division and cell death. Thanks to the exact solution of a few simple models of cell growth it is by now clear that stochastic…
To maintain renewing epithelial tissues in a healthy, homeostatic state, (stem) cell divisions and differentiation need to be tightly regulated. Mechanisms of homeostatic control often rely on crowding control: cells are able to sense the…
Understanding how the brain learns to compute functions reliably, efficiently and robustly with noisy spiking activity is a fundamental challenge in neuroscience. Most sensory and motor tasks can be described as dynamical systems and could…
The co-occurrence of action potentials of pairs of neurons within short time intervals is known since long. Such synchronous events can appear time-locked to the behavior of an animal and also theoretical considerations argue for a…
We study the characteristics of weak signal detection by a recurrent neuronal network with plastic synaptic coupling. It is shown that in the presence of an asynchronous component in synaptic transmission, the network acquires selectivity…
Understanding the relationship between large-scale structural and functional brain networks remains a crucial issue in modern neuroscience. Recently, there has been growing interest in investigating the role of homeostatic plasticity…
In vitro and in vivo spiking activity clearly differ. Whereas networks in vitro develop strong bursts separated by periods of very little spiking activity, in vivo cortical networks show continuous activity. This is puzzling considering…
Correlation-based Hebbian plasticity is thought to shape neuronal connectivity during development and learning, whereas homeostatic plasticity would stabilize network activity. Here we investigate another, new aspect of this dichotomy: Can…