Role of inhibition for the formation of neural assemblies in plastic neural networks subject to selective stimuli
Résumé
We investigate the role of inhibition in structuring new neural assemblies following a learning phase in the brain. Although many studies have been devoted to this subject, few of them have considered the specific role of inhibitory neurons. Therefore, this work aims at studying the impact of inhibition in adaptive neural networks. In particular we focus on the role of synchronized dynamics for the creation and maintenance of structural modules in the brain circuits.
Specifically, we considered an excitatory-inhibitory neural network made of θ-neurons with plastic Hebbian synapses. The learning process is mimicked by stimulating different areas of the network with temporal alternating external stimuli. This stimulation process leads to the emergence of modular structures. Then, the network dynamics is analysed after the learning phase revealing the maintenance of co-active neural assemblies over the long term.
We show that the presence of inhibitory neurons controls the emergence of the modular structures and their maintenance in the resting phase following the learning period. Furthermore, we demonstrate that the number of inhibitory neurons in the network is directly related to the maximal number of neural assemblies that can be maintained.
These results support the idea that inhibition has a direct impact on the memory capacity of a neural network.
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