Correlated Connectivity and the Distribution of Firing Rates in the Neocortex

Two recent experimental observations pose a challenge to many cortical models. First, the activity in the auditory cortex is sparse, and firing rates can be described by a lognormal distribution. Second, the distribution of nonzero synaptic strengths between nearby cortical neurons can also be described by a lognormal distribution. Here we use a simple model of cortical activity to reconcile these observations. The model makes the experimentally testable prediction that synaptic efficacies onto a given cortical neuron are statistically correlated, i.e., it predicts that some neurons receive stronger synapses than other neurons. We propose a simple Hebb-like learning rule that gives rise to such correlations and yields both lognormal firing rates and synaptic efficacies. Our results represent a first step toward reconciling sparse activity and sparse connectivity in cortical networks.

• Publication year

  2008

• Venue

  Journal of Neuroscience

• Publication date

  2008-09-09

• Fields of study

  Biology, Medicine, Physics

• Identifiers
  DOI 10.1523/JNEUROSCI.4500-08.2009arXiv 0809.1630PMID 19321765PMCID PMC2784918
• External record

  Open on Semantic Scholar

• Source metadata

  Semantic Scholar, PubMed

• No claims are published for this paper.

• No concepts are published for this paper.

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