039

Title:

Emergence of cellular and network degeneracy through the balance between intrinsic and synaptic properties

Discipline: Biology

Presenter:

Smita More-Potdar

Abstract:

Many behaviors critical for survival, such as locomotion and respiration, must be robust and consistent across an individual’s lifespan and different individuals. However, the networks that generate these behaviors display significant variability at the level of neuronal and synaptic properties. This work addresses the question of how and under what conditions neuronal networks, with variable cellular and network properties, generate similar activity. We hypothesize that neural networks maintain similar outputs by dynamically balancing neuronal intrinsic and synaptic properties. We test this hypothesis with two approaches. One approach is to ask how single neurons may gain similar attributes of activity from an activity-based homeostatic rule that acts on neuron intrinsic properties. The second approach examines how neurons that have similar attributes of activity in isolation may or may not preserve those when placed in a network coupled with either chemical or electrical synapses. Taken together, we show that the newly emerged network activities depend not only on the participating neurons ionic conductances but also the type of synaptic connectivity and the maximal synaptic strengths.

Author(s):

Smita More-Potdar, Omar Itani, Horacio G. Rotstein, Jorge Golowasch

Funding Acknowledgements:

NSF-DMS 1715808 (HGR & JG)