Dendritic Computation in a Point Neuron Model

Abstract

Biological neurons possess elaborate dendrites that perform elaborate computations. They are however ignored in the widely used point neuron models. Here, we present a simple addition to the commonly used leaky integrate-and-fire model that introduces the concept of a dendrite. All synapses on the dendrite have a mutual relationship. The result is a form of short term plasticity in which synapse strengths are influenced by recent activity in other synapses. This improves the ability of the neuron to recognize temporal sequences.