Skip to main content
Log in

How synapses in the auditory system wax and wane: theoretical perspectives

  • Published:
Biological Cybernetics Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract.

Spike-timing-dependent synaptic plasticity has recently provided an account of both the acuity of sound localization and the development of temporal-feature maps in the avian auditory system. The dynamics of the resulting learning equation, which describes the evolution of the synaptic weights, is governed by an unstable fixed point. We outline the derivation of the learning equation for both the Poisson neuron model and the leaky integrate-and-fire neuron with conductance synapses. The asymptotic solutions of the learning equation can be described by a spectral representation based on a biorthogonal expansion.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Similar content being viewed by others

Acknowledgments.

The authors thank the Mathematical Biosciences Institute for organizing the Workshop on Auditory Processing, where part of this work was done, and Christian Leibold and Hamish Meffin for a critical reading of the manuscript and detailed comments.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Corresponding author

Correspondence to A. N. Burkitt.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Burkitt, A., van Hemmen, J. How synapses in the auditory system wax and wane: theoretical perspectives. Biol. Cybern. 89, 318–332 (2003). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00422-003-0437-3

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00422-003-0437-3

Keywords

Navigation