Synchrony can destabilize reward-sensitive networks.

Publication Type Academic Article
Authors Chary M, Kaplan E
Journal Front Neural Circuits
Volume 8
Pagination 44
Date Published 04/30/2014
ISSN 1662-5110
Keywords Models, Neurological, Nerve Net, Neuronal Plasticity, Neurons, Reward
Abstract When exposed to rewarding stimuli, only some animals develop persistent craving. Others are resilient and do not. How the activity of neural populations relates to the development of persistent craving behavior is not fully understood. Previous computational studies suggest that synchrony helps a network embed certain patterns of activity, although the role of synchrony in reward-dependent learning has been less studied. Increased synchrony has been reported as a marker for both susceptibility and resilience to developing persistent craving. Here we use computational simulations to study the effect of reward salience on the ability of synchronous input to embed a new pattern of activity into a neural population. Our main finding is that weak stimulus-reward correlations can facilitate the short-term repetition of a pattern of neural activity, while blocking long-term embedding of that pattern. Interestingly, synchrony did not have this dual effect on all patterns, which suggests that synchrony is more effective at embedding some patterns of activity than others. Our results demonstrate that synchrony can have opposing effects in networks sensitive to the correlation structure of their inputs, in this case the correlation between stimulus and reward. This work contributes to an understanding of the interplay between synchrony and reward-dependent plasticity.
DOI 10.3389/fncir.2014.00044
PubMed ID 24817842
PubMed Central ID PMC4012213
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