Functional consequences of pre- and postsynaptic expression of synaptic plasticity.

Area of Science:

• Neuroscience
• Synaptic Plasticity
• Computational Neuroscience

Background:

• Emerging evidence indicates synaptic plasticity, encompassing both homeostatic and Hebbian forms, can manifest at presynaptic and postsynaptic sites.
• Understanding the locus of expression (pre- vs. postsynaptic) is crucial for interpreting plasticity's functional role.

Purpose of the Study:

• To review evidence for pre- and postsynaptic expression of synaptic plasticity.
• To explore the functional consequences of diverse expression sites for homeostatic and Hebbian plasticity.
• To analyze a computational model of spike-timing-dependent plasticity with dual expression sites.

Main Methods:

• Review of experimental evidence for synaptic plasticity expression loci.
• Analysis of computational models simulating pre- and postsynaptic plasticity.
• Comparison of model predictions with varying expression sites.

Main Results:

• A model incorporating both pre- and postsynaptic spike-timing-dependent plasticity (STDP) and postsynaptic homeostatic control predicts enhanced functional outcomes.
• Compared to postsynaptic-only expression, dual expression leads to more reliable receptive fields and sensory perception.
• Dual expression also facilitates rapid recovery of forgotten information (memory savings) and reduced response latencies.

Conclusions:

• The locus of synaptic plasticity expression significantly impacts synaptic and network computations.
• Pre- and postsynaptic expression of plasticity offers distinct functional advantages over postsynaptic-only mechanisms.
• Further research is needed to fully elucidate the computational roles of specific plasticity expression sites.