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Plasticity mechanism and memory formation in the chemical synapse

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Abstract

Detailed knowledge about the synaptic plasticity is the key for understanding of memory formation and its changes with aging and diseases. In this paper, we explain the mechanism of synaptic plasticity and link it to the memory formation. A chemical synapse exhibits the same hysteresis curve as a memristor within a presynaptic firing spike, and the memory line is determined by the nonlinear relation between the transmitter concentration and the presynaptic potential. The lower presynaptic voltage threshold of transmitter releasing induces the loss of such memory effect in the synapse. In addition, the link is investigated between the plasticity and memory basing on three aspects, including synaptic plasticity for a given memory (necessity), suppression of synaptic plasticity after acquiring the memory (saturation) and forgotten events (erasure or inaccessible states). Moreover, the small-world brain network and scale-free brain network exhibit desynchronization behaviors with the memory effect, and they show the robustness of some diseases. These results shed light on the understanding of the synaptic plasticity and disclose the principle of memory formation.

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The data that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Nos. 62071496, 61901530) and the Research and Innovation Project of Graduate of Central South University (2023ZZTS0168).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Physics and Electronics, Central South University, Changsha, China

    Zhao Yao, Kehui Sun & Shaobo He

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  1. Zhao Yao
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  2. Kehui Sun
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Correspondence to Kehui Sun.

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Yao, Z., Sun, K. & He, S. Plasticity mechanism and memory formation in the chemical synapse. Nonlinear Dyn 111, 19411–19423 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11071-023-08844-6

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