Summary from:

Chance, F. S., Nelson, S. B., and Abbott, L. F. (1998) Temporal Characteristics of V1 Cells Arising from Synaptic Depression. Bower, J. ed. Computational Neuroscience Trends in Research, 1998 (Plenum, NY).




Synaptic depression provides a possible mechanism for nonlinear dynamics in V1 simple cell responses. A model V1 simple cell with synaptic depression on its afferent synapses has a realistic temporal frequency response curve with enhanced responses to transient high-frequency stimuli. Correlation between the amount of depression and the location of afferent receptive fields can give rise to direction selectivity. The direction selective model constructed in this way demonstrates direction selectivity over a range of stimulus contrasts and temporal frequencies similar to those in experimental data. Model membrane potential fluctuations in response to stationary gratings closely resemble those of intracellular recordings. Finally, a slower component of depression can reproduce effects seen in contrast adaptation experiments.


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