To begin identifying potential dynamically-defined computational elements within the striatum, we constructed a new three-dimensional model of the striatal microcircuit's connectivity, and instantiated this with our dopamine-modulated neuron models of the MSNs and FSIs. A new model of gap junctions between the FSIs was introduced and tuned to experimental data. We introduced a novel multiple spike-train analysis method, and apply this to the outputs of the model to find groups of synchronised neurons at multiple time-scales. We found that, with realistic in vivo background input, small assemblies of synchronised MSNs spontaneously appeared, consistent with experimental observations, and that the number of assemblies and the time-scale of synchronisation was strongly dependent on the simulated concentration of dopamine. We also showed that feed-forward inhibition from the FSIs counter-intuitively increases the firing rate of the MSNs.
Reference:
1 .
Humphries MD, Wood R, Gurney K (2009) Dopamine-modulated dynamic cell assemblies generated by the GABAergic striatal microcircuit. Neural Netw 22:1174-88 [PubMed]
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