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Paper   IPM / Cognitive Sciences / 14661
School of Cognitive Sciences
  Title:   Dendritic and Axonal Propagation Delays Determine Emergent Structures of Neuronal Networks with Plastic Synapses
  Author(s): 
1.  M. Madadi Asl
2.  A. Valizadeh
3.  P. Tass
  Status:   Published
  Journal: Scientific Reports
  Vol.:  7
  Year:  2017
  Pages:   1-12
  Supported by:  IPM
  Abstract:
Spike-timing-dependent plasticity (STDP) modifies synaptic strengths based on the relative timing of pre- and postsynaptic spikes. The temporal order of spikes turned out to be crucial. We here take into account how propagation delays, composed of dendritic and axonal delay times, may affect the temporal order of spikes. In a minimal setting, characterized by neglecting dendritic and axonal propagation delays, STDP eliminates bidirectional connections between two coupled neurons and turns them into unidirectional connections. In this paper, however, we show that depending on the dendritic and axonal propagation delays, the temporal order of spikes at the synapses can be different from those in the cell bodies and, consequently, qualitatively different connectivity patterns emerge. In particular, we show that for a system of two coupled oscillatory neurons, bidirectional synapses can be preserved and potentiated. Intriguingly, this finding also translates to large networks of type-II phase oscillators and, hence, crucially impacts on the overall hierarchical connectivity patterns of oscillatory neuronal networks.

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