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Plastic Arbor: A modern simulation framework for synaptic plasticity—From single synapses to networks of morphological neurons

Fig 5

Memory recall in a recurrent network of multi-compartment neurons after learning and after consolidation.

Results obtained with Arbor for networks of different kinds of multi-compartment neurons, demonstrating the impact of different values of the PRP diffusivity on memory consolidation. Networks consist of ‘small’ cells (radius of ) or of ‘large’ cells (radius of ), with either short or long dendrites (in which cases each neuron comprises in total 31 or 48 compartments, respectively). The radius and length values are given in Table 6. (A,B) Illustrations of used cell structures, generated using Arbor GUI [55]. Each segment is represented by a different color. A segment can consist of a multitude of compartments. Overlaid with illustrations of more realistic neuron structures that would have roughly similar functional properties. (A) a small (left) and a large (right) cell with short dendrites, (B) the same with long dendrites (cf. Table 6). (C) Paradigm of two-phase synaptic plasticity with calcium-based early phase and late phase described by synaptic tagging and capture. The impact of the diffusion of PRPs can be examined using different morphological neuron structures. New features of the Arbor core code are highlighted in italic. (D) Fraction of a neuronal network consisting of excitatory multi-compartment (blue and dark blue circles) and inhibitory neurons (red circles). Following external input, the synapses between excitatory neurons undergo plastic changes implemented as detailed in (C), forming a Hebbian cell assembly (related results in (E–L)). (E–H) Memory recall measured by pattern completion coefficient Q (see Eq 22) for a stimulated subset of varied size (a varied pattern of neurons are stimulated for learning/recall). Value Q > 0 indicates the successful recall of a memory representation. Average over 100 network realizations. Error bars represent the 95% confidence interval. (E) Recall stimulation at after learning (technically, , but late-phase plasticity does not occur on such short timescales). (F) Recall stimulation at after learning, . (G) Recall stimulation at after learning, . (H) Recall stimulation at after learning, . (I–L) Same as (E–H), but for large cells that consist of segments of twice the diameter.

doi: https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pcbi.1013926.g005