Synaptic depression and cortical gain control
Abstract
Cortical neurons receive synaptic inputs from thousands of afferents that fire action potentials at rates ranging from less than 1 hertz to more than 200 hertz. Both the number of afferents and their large dynamic range can mask changes in the spatial and temporal pattern of synaptic activity, limiting the ability of a cortical neuron to respond to its inputs. Modeling work based on experimental measurements indicates that short-term depression of intracortical synapses provides a dynamic gain-control mechanism that allows equal percentage rate changes on rapidly and slowly firing afferents to produce equal postsynaptic responses. Unlike inhibitory and adaptive mechanisms that reduce responsiveness to all inputs, synaptic depression is input-specific, leading to a dramatic increase in the sensitivity of a neuron to subtle changes in the firing patterns of its afferents.
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The rescaling of prediction errors by recurrent connections, in proportion to their precision, affords a form of cortical bias or gain control.
“The rescaling of prediction errors by recurrent connections, in proportion to their precision, affords a form of cortical bias or gain control [73],[74].”
From Hierarchical Models in the Brain (2008) · cites this paper as [74]
In a perceptual setting, conditional precisions may mediate attentional gain.
“In a perceptual setting, they may mediate attentional gain (cf., Abbott et al. 1997;Yu and Dayan 2005;Friston 2008).”
From Action and behavior: a free-energy formulation (2010) · cites this paper as Abbott et al. 1997
Cortical bias or gain control is mediated by intrinsic inhibitory connections within cortical sources, which rescale prediction errors in proportion to their precision, so that as precision increases intrinsic recurrent inhibition decreases.
“Cortical bias or gain control is mediated by intrinsic inhibitory connections within cortical sources, which rescale prediction errors, in proportion to their precision, so that as precision increases intrinsic recurrent inhibition decreases (Abbott et al., 1997, Friston, 2008).”
From The functional anatomy of schizophrenia: A dynamic causal modeling study of predictive coding (2014) · cites this paper as Abbott et al., 1997
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- Authors
- Abbott, L. F., Varela, J. A., Sen, K., & Nelson, S. B.
- Affiliations
- Brandeis University (US)
- Corresponding author
- Abbott, L. F.
- Venue
- Science
- Published
- 1997-01-10
- Volume
- 275
- Issue
- 5297
- Pages
- 221-224
- ISSN
- 0036-8075 (ISSN-L)
- 1095-9203
- OpenAlex
- W2022995207
- Cited by
- 1,690
- References
- 15
- Citations by year
- 2026: 15 · 2025: 22 · 2024: 37 · 2023: 37 · 2022: 39 · 2021: 39 · 2020: 43 · 2019: 55 · 2018: 41 · 2017: 46 · 2016: 46 · 2015: 45 · 2014: 61 · 2013: 56 · 2012: 58
- FWCI
- 29.50
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- Science (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Topics
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cellular and Molecular Neuroscience › Neuroscience and Neuropharmacology Research
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Neural dynamics and brain function
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Visual perception and processing mechanisms
- Keywords
- synaptic depression, short-term depression, postsynaptic response, cortical neurons, synaptic plasticity
- MeSH terms
- Action Potentials, Animals, Electric Stimulation, Models, Neurological, Synaptic Transmission, Neuronal Plasticity, Neurons, Neurons, Afferent, Synapses, Visual Cortex, Rats, In Vitro Techniques
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