Abstract
It has recently been discovered that single neuron stimulation can impact network dynamics in immature and adult neuronal circuits. Here we report a novel mechanism which can explain in neuronal circuits, at an early stage of development, the peculiar role played by a few specific neurons in promoting/arresting the population activity. For this purpose, we consider a standard neuronal network model, with short-term synaptic plasticity, whose population activity is characterized by bursting behavior. The addition of developmentally inspired constraints and correlations in the distribution of the neuronal connectivities and excitabilities leads to the emergence of functional hub neurons, whose stimulation/deletion is critical for the network activity. Functional hubs form a clique, where a precise sequential activation of the neurons is essential to ignite collective events without any need for a specific topological architecture. Unsupervised time-lagged firings of supra-threshold cells, in connection with coordinated entrainments of near-threshold neurons, are the key ingredients to orchestrate population activity.
Highlights
There is increasing experimental evidence that single neuron firing can impact brain circuits dynamics [1]
To which extent a single neuron can influence brain circuits/networks dynamics? Why only a few neurons display such a strong power? These open questions are inspired by recent experimental observations in developing and adult neuronal circuits, as well as by classical debates within the framework of the single neuron doctrine
In this work we identify and present a mechanism which can explain in neuronal circuits, at some early stage of their development, how and why only a few specific neurons can exhibit such power
Summary
There is increasing experimental evidence that single neuron firing can impact brain circuits dynamics [1]. The capability of single neurons to evoke sparse [6] and network-wide neuronal events [1,4,5] in brain circuits can be interpreted within the framework of the single neuron doctrine, firstly postulated on sensorial perception by Barlow in 1972 [8]. According to this doctrine, the spiking of a single neuron in a network has a high functional relevance being able to code very for high level features of abstraction such as concepts. Two main approaches can be foreseen: a ‘‘structural-functional’’ approach [16,17,18,19,20], where the specific topology of the network and the connectivity pattern of the cells are responsible for the relevance of the single neuron or a ‘‘dynamical’’ approach, where the single neuron becomes relevant due to the nonlinear evolution of neuronal excitability and synaptic connectivity in the network [21,22]
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