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Updated: Jul 8, 2026
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Inducing Long-Term Plasticity of Intrinsic Neuronal Excitability in Neurons of the Dorsal Lateral Geniculate Nucleus
Published on: September 20, 2024
A sparse generative model of V1 simple cells with intrinsic plasticity
Cornelius Weber1, Jochen Triesch
1Frankfurt Institute for Advanced Studies, Johann Wolfgang Goethe University, Frankfurt am Main 60438, Germany. c.weber@fias.uni-frankfurt.de
Neural Computation
|January 16, 2008
Summary
This study introduces intrinsic plasticity, a neuron adaptation mechanism, to model visual processing and aftereffects. This model successfully replicates edge detectors and the tilt aftereffect by adjusting neuron gain.
Area of Science:
- Computational Neuroscience
- Neuroscience
- Machine Learning
Background:
- Current models use fast (activation) and slow (weight) adaptation timescales.
- Intrinsic plasticity, a neuron's intrinsic excitability adaptation, operates on a distinct timescale.
- This mechanism helps neurons maintain firing rate homeostasis in dynamic environments.
Purpose of the Study:
- To explore intrinsic plasticity for feature detection and modeling perceptual aftereffects.
- To integrate intrinsic plasticity into a generative model for sparse coding.
- To account for experimental details in visual perception, such as the tilt aftereffect.
Main Methods:
- Utilized a generative model incorporating intrinsic plasticity.
- Applied natural image input to train feature detectors.
- Investigated the role of intrinsic plasticity timescales in simulating aftereffects.
Main Results:
- Localized edge detectors, modeling V1 simple cells, emerged from the model.
- The model successfully simulated the tilt aftereffect.
- Adapting neuron gain, not threshold, explained the tilt aftereffect phenomenon.
Conclusions:
- Intrinsic plasticity offers a simple yet powerful mechanism for neural computation.
- This model explains more experimental details of visual perception than previous models.
- Intrinsic plasticity is crucial for understanding neural adaptation and perceptual phenomena.
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