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BE Seminar Series: Synchronization is Robust in a Computational Model of Neuronal Network Dynamics and Injury

March 28, 2019 at 12:35 PM - 1:00 PM
Details
Date: March 28, 2019
Time: 12:35 PM - 1:00 PM
Event Category: SeminarDoctoralStudent
  • Event Tags:
  • Organizer
    Bioengineering
    Phone: 215-898-8501
    Venue
    Room 337, Towne Building 220 South 33rd Street
    Philadelphia
    PA 19104
    Google Map

    At the macroscale, synchronization between brain regions is believed to be important for memory and attention. Injury, including mild traumatic brain injury, can both increase and decrease synchronization as measured by functional MRI, but these changes are not well understood and are unknown at a smaller spatial scale. Here, we examined how injury affects the synchronization between two clusters of neurons. We used a computational network model consisting of excitatory and inhibitory neurons, derived from Izhikevich integrate-and-fire neurons. We connected two clusters of neurons with different intrinsic firing rates. In this architecture, two distinct clusters of neurons were directionally connected from one upstream cluster to one downstream cluster. The network remodeled according to the rules of spike-timing-dependent plasticity (STDP), resulting in highly synchronized activity between the clusters. We characterized structural subtypes within the network and subsequently explored the functional effects of damaging the network by removing neurons based on their subtype membership.