Dynamical Model of Long-term Synaptic Plasticity

Long-term synaptic plasticity leading to enhancement in synaptic efficacy (long-term potentiation,LTP) or decrease in synaptic efficacy (long-term depression,LTD) is widely regarded as underlying learning and memory in nervous systems. LTP and LTD at excitatory neuronal synapses are observed to be induced by precise timing of pre-and postsynaptic events. Modification of synaptic transmission in long-term plasticity is a complex process involving many pathways; for example,it is also known that both forms of synaptic plasticity can be induced by various time courses of Ca2+ introduction into the postsynaptic cell. We present a phenomenological description of a two-component process for synaptic plasticity and dynamical model。 We give model predictions for changes in synaptic strength when periodic spike trains of varying frequency and Poisson distributed spike trains with varying average frequency are presented pre-and postsynaptically.