On Monday, September 27, 2004, 4:00 PM Barus & Holley (Room 168) Larry Abbott (Brandeis University) presented a talk entitled:

"Cascade Models of Synaptic Plasticity and Memory "

as part of the Seminar Series

"Frontiers in the Interaction Between Physics and Biology"

Abstract:

Storing memories of ongoing, everyday experiences requires a high degree of plasticity, but retaining these memories demands protection against changes induced by further activity and experience.  Models in which memories are stored through switch-like transitions in synaptic efficacy are good at storing but bad at retaining memories if these transitions are likely, and poor at storage but good at retention if they are unlikely.  I will discuss a model in which each synapse has a cascade of states with different levels of plasticity, connected by metaplastic transitions.  This cascade model combines high levels of memory storage with long retention times and significantly outperforms alternative models .