What can we learn from synaptic weight distributions?
Published
Journal Article (Review)
Much research effort into synaptic plasticity has been motivated by the idea that modifications of synaptic weights (or strengths or efficacies) underlie learning and memory. Here, we examine the possibility of exploiting the statistics of experimentally measured synaptic weights to deduce information about the learning process. Analysing distributions of synaptic weights requires a theoretical framework to interpret the experimental measurements, but the results can be unexpectedly powerful, yielding strong constraints on possible learning theories as well as information that is difficult to obtain by other means, such as the information storage capacity of a cell. We review the available experimental and theoretical techniques as well as important open issues.
Full Text
Duke Authors
Cited Authors
- Barbour, B; Brunel, N; Hakim, V; Nadal, J-P
Published Date
- December 2007
Published In
Volume / Issue
- 30 / 12
Start / End Page
- 622 - 629
PubMed ID
- 17983670
Pubmed Central ID
- 17983670
International Standard Serial Number (ISSN)
- 0166-2236
Digital Object Identifier (DOI)
- 10.1016/j.tins.2007.09.005
Language
- eng
Conference Location
- England