Small, correlated changes in synaptic connectivity may facilitate rapid motor learning.

ABSTRACT: Animals rapidly adapt their movements to external perturbations, a process paralleled by changes in neural activity in the motor cortex. Experimental studies suggest that these changes originate from altered inputs (H_input) rather than from changes in local connectivity (H_local), as neural covariance is largely preserved during adaptation. Since measuring synaptic changes in vivo remains very challenging, we used a modular recurrent neural network to qualitatively test this interpretation. As expected, H_input resulted in small activity changes and largely preserved covariance. Surprisingly given the presumed dependence of stable covariance on preserved circuit connectivity, H_local led to only slightly larger changes in activity and covariance, st

SUBMITTER: Feulner B 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9440011 | biostudies-literature | 2022 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature