RT Journal Article
SR Electronic
T1 The temporal paradox of Hebbian learning and homeostatic plasticity
JF bioRxiv
FD Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory
SP 116400
DO 10.1101/116400
A1 Friedemann Zenke
A1 Wulfram Gerstner
A1 Surya Ganguli
YR 2017
UL http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2017/03/22/116400.abstract
AB Hebbian plasticity, a synaptic mechanism which detects and amplifies co-activity between neurons, is considered a key ingredient underlying learning and memory in the brain. However, Hebbian plasticity alone is unstable, leading to runaway neuronal activity, and therefore requires stabilization by additional compensatory processes. Traditionally, a diversity of homeostatic plasticity phenomena found in neural circuits are thought to play this role. However, recent modelling work suggests that the slow evolution of homeostatic plasticity, as observed in experiments, is insufficient to prevent instabilities originating from Hebbian plasticity. To remedy this situation, we suggest that homeostatic plasticity is complemented by additional rapid compensatory processes, which rapidly stabilize neuronal activity on short timescales.