Functional consequences of pre- and postsynaptic expression of synaptic plasticity

• Published in: Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B. Biological sciences Vol. 372; no. 1715; p. 20160153
• Main Authors: Costa, Rui Ponte, Mizusaki, Beatriz E. P., Sjöström, P. Jesper, van Rossum, Mark C. W.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: England The Royal Society 05.03.2017; The Royal Society Publishing
• Subjects: Animals; Functional plasticity; Hebbian Plasticity; Homeostasis; Homeostatic plasticity; Homoeostatic Plasticity; Humans; Loci; Long-Term Potentiation; Memory; Models, Neurological; Neuronal Plasticity; Plasticity; Reaction Time; Review; Sensation; Sensory perception; Spike-Timing-Dependent Plasticity; Synaptic Plasticity; Synaptic Release; synaptic release; synaptic plasticity; Hebbian plasticity; spike-timing-dependent plasticity; homoeostatic plasticity; long-term potentiation
• ISSN: 0962-8436; 1471-2970
• DOI: 10.1098/rstb.2016.0153

Growing experimental evidence shows that both homeostatic and Hebbian synaptic plasticity can be expressed presynaptically as well as postsynaptically. In this review, we start by discussing this evidence and methods used to determine expression loci. Next, we discuss the functional consequences of this diversity in pre- and postsynaptic expression of both homeostatic and Hebbian synaptic plasticity. In particular, we explore the functional consequences of a biologically tuned model of pre- and postsynaptically expressed spike-timing-dependent plasticity complemented with postsynaptic homeostatic control. The pre- and postsynaptic expression in this model predicts (i) more reliable receptive fields and sensory perception, (ii) rapid recovery of forgotten information (memory savings), and (iii) reduced response latencies, compared with a model with postsynaptic expression only. Finally, we discuss open questions that will require a considerable research effort to better elucidate how the specific locus of expression of homeostatic and Hebbian plasticity alters synaptic and network computations. This article is part of the themed issue ‘Integrating Hebbian and homeostatic plasticity’.