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Roland E Suri

Publications and source records attributed to Roland E Suri.

3 recordsLinked to original sources

A computational framework for cortical learning.

Recent physiological findings have revealed that long-term adaptation of the synaptic strengths between cortical pyramidal neurons depends on the temporal order of presynaptic and postsynaptic spikes, which is called spike-timing-dependent plasticity (STDP) or temporally asymmetric Hebbian (TAH) learning. Here I prove by analytical means that a physiologically plausible variant of STDP adapts synaptic strengths such that the presynaptic spikes predict the postsynaptic spikes with minimal error. This prediction error model of STDP implies a mechanism for cortical memory: cortical tissue learns temporal spike patterns if these spike patterns are repeatedly elicited in a set of pyramidal neurons. The trained network finishes these patterns if their beginnings are presented, thereby recalling the memory. Implementations of the proposed algorithms may be useful for applications in voice recognition and computer vision.

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Spike propagation synchronized by temporally asymmetric Hebbian learning.

Synchronously spiking neurons have been observed in the cerebral cortex and the hippocampus. In computer models, synchronous spike volleys may be propagated across appropriately connected neuron populations. However, it is unclear how the appropriate synaptic connectivity is set up during development and maintained during adult learning. We performed computer simulations to investigate the influence of temporally asymmetric Hebbian synaptic plasticity on the propagation of spike volleys. In addition to feedforward connections, recurrent connections were included between and within neuron populations and spike transmission delays varied due to axonal, synaptic and dendritic transmission. We found that repeated presentations of input volleys decreased the synaptic conductances of intragroup and feedback connections while synaptic conductances of feedforward connections with short delays became stronger than those of connections with longer delays. These adaptations led to the synchronization of spike volleys as they propagated across neuron populations. The findings suggests that temporally asymmetric Hebbian learning may enhance synchronized spiking within small populations of neurons in cortical and hippocampal areas and familiar stimuli may produce synchronized spike volleys that are rapidly propagated across neural tissue.

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TD models of reward predictive responses in dopamine neurons.

This article focuses on recent modeling studies of dopamine neuron activity and their influence on behavior. Activity of midbrain dopamine neurons is phasically increased by stimuli that increase the animal's reward expectation and is decreased below baseline levels when the reward fails to occur. These characteristics resemble the reward prediction error signal of the temporal difference (TD) model, which is a model of reinforcement learning. Computational modeling studies show that such a dopamine-like reward prediction error can serve as a powerful teaching signal for learning with delayed reinforcement, in particular for learning of motor sequences. Several lines of evidence suggest that dopamine is also involved in 'cognitive' processes that are not addressed by standard TD models. I propose the hypothesis that dopamine neuron activity is crucial for planning processes, also referred to as 'goal-directed behavior', which select actions by evaluating predictions about their motivational outcomes.

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