Neurogenesis drives stimulus decorrelation in a model of the olfactory bulb.

ABSTRACT: The reshaping and decorrelation of similar activity patterns by neuronal networks can enhance their discriminability, storage, and retrieval. How can such networks learn to decorrelate new complex patterns, as they arise in the olfactory system? Using a computational network model for the dominant neural populations of the olfactory bulb we show that fundamental aspects of the adult neurogenesis observed in the olfactory bulb--the persistent addition of new inhibitory granule cells to the network, their activity-dependent survival, and the reciprocal character of their synapses with the principal mitral cells--are sufficient to restructure the network and to alter its encoding of odor stimuli adaptively so as to reduce the correlations between the bulbar representations of similar stimuli.

SUBMITTER: Chow SF 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3305347 | biostudies-literature | 2012

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature