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Effective connectivity at synaptic level in humans: a review and future prospects

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Abstract

Correct knowledge of the effective connectivity at the synaptic level in humans is a key prerequisite for increasing our understanding of the operation of the human central nervous system. Unfortunately, none of the current ambitious collaborative neuroscience projects pay enough attention to this topic and are thus unable to completely relate the microlevel properties of the system to its emergent macrolevel behaviors. In this review article, the problem of effective connectivity at the synaptic level in humans is explained, existing and possible computational approaches to fill explanatory gaps are reviewed, and the requisite characteristics of these approaches are considered.

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Notes

  1. The actual coupling that we are trying to model is referred to as effective connectivity. In some studies the term functional connectivity is also used, but this term refers more to the statistical correlations between nodes [for a review see Friston (2011)]. In this sense, the term effective connectivity is used throughout this article.

  2. On higher resolution levels (neuronal ensembles or brain regions) it is better known as synaptic efficacy.

  3. However, in such a stimulation, not only the sensory system under study but also other sensory axons and motor axons located in the same nerve trunk are activated.

  4. In mathematics, a bin of a histogram represents a discrete interval in that histogram. When a histogram acquires \(m\) different values, it is called an m-bin histogram.

  5. It is assumed that the data mean has been subtracted from the time series.

  6. The paradox was articulated by Hans Moravec (and is thus known as Moravec’s Paradox) in the 1980s (Moravec 1988).

  7. Three forms of local plasticity are: spike-timing-dependent plasticity (STDP) (Song et al. 2000), synaptic scaling of the excitatory–excitatory connections (Turrigiano et al. 1998), and intrinsic plasticity regulating the thresholds of excitatory units.

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  1. Computer Engineering Department, Ege University, Universite Cad., 35100, Bornova, Izmir, Turkey

    Önder Gürcan

  2. Laboratory of Model driven engineering for embedded systems, CEA LIST, Point Courrier 174, 91191, Gif-Sur-Yvette, France

    Önder Gürcan

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Gürcan, Ö. Effective connectivity at synaptic level in humans: a review and future prospects. Biol Cybern 108, 713–733 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00422-014-0619-1

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