Sadra Sadeh (University College London) | Modelling the emergence and consequences of feature-specific connectivity in mouse primary visual cortex

Abstract

At eye opening, excitatory neurons in mouse primary visual cortex show significant selectivity for certain orientations in the visual stimulus. Connections between these neurons are, however, independent of their respective orientation selectivity. Feature-specificity in wiring, where neurons with similar functional properties are more strongly connected together, develops only later, as the visual cortex maturates. In the first part of the talk, I present results on how this feature-specific connectivity may develop in large-scale networks of excitatory and inhibitory spiking neurons equipped with synaptic plasticity. In the second part, I discuss possible consequences of this for biologically realistic functional networks. One observation was that an excess of specific connectivity between excitatory neurons is not necessarily beneficial for sensory processing, as it leads to spectral instability, with pathologic correlations and even a decrease in signal amplification. I discuss some endogenous mechanisms the brain can employ to cope with this problem.