On higher order computations and synaptic meta-plasticity in the human brain

Abstract

Glia modify neuronal connectivity by creating structural changes in the neuronal connectome. Glia also influence the functional connectome by modifying the flow of information through neural networks (Fields et al. 2015 [6]). There are strong experimental evidences that glia are responsible for synaptic meta-plasticity. Synaptic plasticity is the modification of the strength of connections between neurons. Meta-plasticity, i.e. plasticity of synaptic plasticity, may be viewed as mechanisms for dynamic reconfiguration of neural circuits. Since synapse creation corresponds to the mathematical notion of function composition, the mechanisms may serve as a grounding for functionals, i.e. higher order functions that take functions as their arguments.