Soft-bound synaptic plasticity increases storage capacity
Accurate models of synaptic plasticity are essential to understand the adaptive properties of the nervous system and for realistic models of learning and memory. Experiments have shown that synaptic plasticity depends not only on pre- and post-synaptic activity patterns, but also on the strength of...
| Main Authors: | , , |
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| Format: | Article |
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Public Library of Science
2012
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| Online Access: | https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/49639/ |
| _version_ | 1848798043798765568 |
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| author | van Rossum, Mark C.W. Shippi, Maria Barrett, Adam B. |
| author_facet | van Rossum, Mark C.W. Shippi, Maria Barrett, Adam B. |
| author_sort | van Rossum, Mark C.W. |
| building | Nottingham Research Data Repository |
| collection | Online Access |
| description | Accurate models of synaptic plasticity are essential to understand the adaptive properties of the nervous system and for realistic models of learning and memory. Experiments have shown that synaptic plasticity depends not only on pre- and post-synaptic activity patterns, but also on the strength of the connection itself. Namely, weaker synapses are more easily strengthened than already strong ones. This so called soft-bound plasticity automatically constrains the synaptic strengths. It is known that this has important consequences for the dynamics of plasticity and the synaptic weight distribution, but its impact on information storage is unknown. In this modeling study we introduce an information theoretic framework to analyse memory storage in an online learning setting. We show that soft-bound plasticity increases a variety of performance criteria by about 18% over hard-bound plasticity, and likely maximizes the storage capacity of synapses. |
| first_indexed | 2025-11-14T20:13:30Z |
| format | Article |
| id | nottingham-49639 |
| institution | University of Nottingham Malaysia Campus |
| institution_category | Local University |
| last_indexed | 2025-11-14T20:13:30Z |
| publishDate | 2012 |
| publisher | Public Library of Science |
| recordtype | eprints |
| repository_type | Digital Repository |
| spelling | nottingham-496392020-05-04T16:34:57Z https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/49639/ Soft-bound synaptic plasticity increases storage capacity van Rossum, Mark C.W. Shippi, Maria Barrett, Adam B. Accurate models of synaptic plasticity are essential to understand the adaptive properties of the nervous system and for realistic models of learning and memory. Experiments have shown that synaptic plasticity depends not only on pre- and post-synaptic activity patterns, but also on the strength of the connection itself. Namely, weaker synapses are more easily strengthened than already strong ones. This so called soft-bound plasticity automatically constrains the synaptic strengths. It is known that this has important consequences for the dynamics of plasticity and the synaptic weight distribution, but its impact on information storage is unknown. In this modeling study we introduce an information theoretic framework to analyse memory storage in an online learning setting. We show that soft-bound plasticity increases a variety of performance criteria by about 18% over hard-bound plasticity, and likely maximizes the storage capacity of synapses. Public Library of Science 2012-12-20 Article PeerReviewed van Rossum, Mark C.W., Shippi, Maria and Barrett, Adam B. (2012) Soft-bound synaptic plasticity increases storage capacity. PLoS Computational Biology, 8 (12). e1002836/1-e1002836/11. ISSN 1553-7358 http://journals.plos.org/ploscompbiol/article?id=10.1371/journal.pcbi.1002836 doi:10.1371/journal.pcbi.1002836 doi:10.1371/journal.pcbi.1002836 |
| spellingShingle | van Rossum, Mark C.W. Shippi, Maria Barrett, Adam B. Soft-bound synaptic plasticity increases storage capacity |
| title | Soft-bound synaptic plasticity increases storage capacity |
| title_full | Soft-bound synaptic plasticity increases storage capacity |
| title_fullStr | Soft-bound synaptic plasticity increases storage capacity |
| title_full_unstemmed | Soft-bound synaptic plasticity increases storage capacity |
| title_short | Soft-bound synaptic plasticity increases storage capacity |
| title_sort | soft-bound synaptic plasticity increases storage capacity |
| url | https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/49639/ https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/49639/ https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/49639/ |