Self-organization of computation in neural systems by interaction between homeostatic and synaptic plasticity

Abstract

When learning a complex task our nervous system self-organizes large groups of neurons into coherent dynamic activity patterns. During this, a cell assembly network with multiple, simultaneously active, and computationally powerful assemblies is formed; a pro- cess which is so far not understood. Here we show that the com- bination of synaptic plasticity with the slower process of synaptic scaling achieves formation of such assembly networks. This type of self-organization allows executing a difficult, six degrees of freedom, manipulation task with a robot where assemblies need to learn com- puting complex non-linear transforms and – for execution – must cooperate with each other without interference. This mechanism, thus, permits for the first time the guided self-organization of com- putationally powerful sub-structures in dynamic networks for be- havior control.