TY - JOUR
T1 - Optimal Degrees of Synaptic Connectivity
AU - Litwin-Kumar, Ashok
AU - Harris, Kameron Decker
AU - Axel, Richard
AU - Sompolinsky, Haim
AU - Abbott, L. F.
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2017 Elsevier Inc.
PY - 2017/3/8
Y1 - 2017/3/8
N2 - Synaptic connectivity varies widely across neuronal types. Cerebellar granule cells receive five orders of magnitude fewer inputs than the Purkinje cells they innervate, and cerebellum-like circuits, including the insect mushroom body, also exhibit large divergences in connectivity. In contrast, the number of inputs per neuron in cerebral cortex is more uniform and large. We investigate how the dimension of a representation formed by a population of neurons depends on how many inputs each neuron receives and what this implies for learning associations. Our theory predicts that the dimensions of the cerebellar granule-cell and Drosophila Kenyon-cell representations are maximized at degrees of synaptic connectivity that match those observed anatomically, showing that sparse connectivity is sometimes superior to dense connectivity. When input synapses are subject to supervised plasticity, however, dense wiring becomes advantageous, suggesting that the type of plasticity exhibited by a set of synapses is a major determinant of connection density.
AB - Synaptic connectivity varies widely across neuronal types. Cerebellar granule cells receive five orders of magnitude fewer inputs than the Purkinje cells they innervate, and cerebellum-like circuits, including the insect mushroom body, also exhibit large divergences in connectivity. In contrast, the number of inputs per neuron in cerebral cortex is more uniform and large. We investigate how the dimension of a representation formed by a population of neurons depends on how many inputs each neuron receives and what this implies for learning associations. Our theory predicts that the dimensions of the cerebellar granule-cell and Drosophila Kenyon-cell representations are maximized at degrees of synaptic connectivity that match those observed anatomically, showing that sparse connectivity is sometimes superior to dense connectivity. When input synapses are subject to supervised plasticity, however, dense wiring becomes advantageous, suggesting that the type of plasticity exhibited by a set of synapses is a major determinant of connection density.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85012934211&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1016/j.neuron.2017.01.030
DO - 10.1016/j.neuron.2017.01.030
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C2 - 28215558
AN - SCOPUS:85012934211
SN - 0896-6273
VL - 93
SP - 1153-1164.e7
JO - Neuron
JF - Neuron
IS - 5
ER -