Learning to Discriminate through Long-Term Changes of Dynamical Synaptic Transmission

Neural Computation 21(12), pp. 3408-3428

Authors: Leibold, C. and M.H.K. Bendels
Year: 2009
Source: Neural Computation 21(12), pp. 3408-3428
Link: http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/abs/10.1162/neco.2009.12-08-929

Abstract:
Short-term synaptic plasticity is modulated by long-term synaptic changes. There is, however, no general agreement on the computational role of this interaction. Here, we derive a learning rule for the release probability and the maximal synaptic conductance in a circuit model with combined recurrent and feedforward connections that allows learning to discriminate among natural inputs. Short-term synaptic plasticity thereby provides a nonlinear expansion of the input space of a linear classifier, whereas the random recurrent network serves to decorrelate the expanded input space. Computer simulations reveal that the twofold increase in the number of input dimensions through short-term synaptic plasticity improves the performance of a standard perceptron up to 100%. The distributions of release probabilities and maximal synaptic conductances at the capacity limit strongly depend on the balance between excitation and inhibition. The model also suggests a new computational interpretation of spikes evoked by stimuli outside the classical receptive field. These neuronal activities may reflect decorrelation of the expanded stimulus space by intracortical synaptic connections.

Affiliation:
Division of Neurobiology, University of Munich, 82152 Planegg-Martinsried, Germany, and Bernstein Center for Computational Neuroscience Munich, 82152 Planegg-Martinsried, Germany.

Document Type: Research article
DOI: 10.1162/neco.2009.12-08-929

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