Effect of pre- and postsynaptic firing patterns on synaptic competition

Abstract

Synaptic plasticity is known to depend on the timing of pre and postsynaptic spikes, a.k.a. spike-timing-dependent plasticity (STDP). This implies that outcomes brought about by STDP should be sensitive to the dynamic properties of pre and postsynaptic neuron activity. Furthermore, because the classical model of STDP does not consider the effect of various pre and postsynaptic spike patterns on the outcome, it fails to reproduce the dependence of the synaptic plasticity polarity, namely the long-term potentiation or depression, on firing rates. In this study, we investigated the interplay between realistic pre and postsynaptic dynamic property models and a modified STDP model, reproducing the firing rate dependency. Our results showed that strengthened synapses depend on a combination of pre and postsynaptic properties as well as input firing rates, suggesting that a postsynaptic neuron may favor specific spike statistics and input firing rates may facilitate this tendency.