Effects of Plasticity Functions on Neural Assemblies

TL;DR

This paper investigates how different neural plasticity functions, such as Oja's and STDP rules, influence neural assemblies within the Assembly Calculus framework, providing insights into brain function modeling.

Contribution

It introduces modifications to the projection operation in Assembly Calculus and evaluates the impact of various plasticity rules and hyper-parameters.

Findings

Different plasticity functions significantly affect assembly formation.

Hyper-parameter choices influence the stability of assemblies.

The modified projection operation improves simulation fidelity.

Abstract

We explore the effects of various plasticity functions on assemblies of neurons. To bridge the gap between experimental and computational theories we make use of a conceptual framework, the Assembly Calculus, which is a formal system for the description of brain function based on assemblies of neurons. The Assembly Calculus includes operations for projecting, associating, and merging assemblies of neurons. Our research is focused on simulating different plasticity functions with Assembly Calculus. Our main contribution is the modification and evaluation of the projection operation. We experiment with Oja's and Spike Time-Dependent Plasticity (STDP) rules and test the effect of various hyper-parameters.