"Temporally precise sequences of neuronal spikes that span hundreds of milliseconds are observed in many brain areas, including songbird premotor nucleus, cat visual cortex, and primary motor cortex. Synfire chains—networks in which groups of neurons are connected via excitatory synapses into a unidirectional chain—are thought to underlie the generation of such sequences. It is unknown, however, how synfire chains can form in local neural circuits, especially for long chains. Here, we show through computer simulation that long synfire chains can develop through spike-time dependent synaptic plasticity and axon remodeling—the pruning of prolific weak connections that follows the emergence of a finite number of strong connections. ..."
Model Type: Realistic Network
Model Concept(s): Temporal Pattern Generation; Spatio-temporal Activity Patterns; STDP; Vision
Simulation Environment: C or C++ program
Implementer(s): Miller, Aaron [aaron at phys.psu.edu]
References:
Jun JK, Jin DZ. (2007). Development of neural circuitry for precise temporal sequences through spontaneous activity, axon remodeling, and synaptic plasticity. PloS one. 2 [PubMed]