Structural Plasticity, Effectual Connectivity, and Memory in Cortex.

ABSTRACT: Learning and memory is commonly attributed to the modification of synaptic strengths in neuronal networks. More recent experiments have also revealed a major role of structural plasticity including elimination and regeneration of synapses, growth and retraction of dendritic spines, and remodeling of axons and dendrites. Here we work out the idea that one likely function of structural plasticity is to increase "effectual connectivity" in order to improve the capacity of sparsely connected networks to store Hebbian cell assemblies that are supposed to represent memories. For this we define effectual connectivity as the fraction of synaptically linked neuron pairs within a cell assembly representing a memory. We show by theory and numerical simulation the close links between effectual connect

SUBMITTER: Knoblauch A 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4909771 | biostudies-literature | 2016

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature