Neurons and Cognition (q-bio.NC)

Abstract: Learning and memory relies on synapses changing their strengths in response to neural activity. However there is a substantial gap between the timescales of neural electrical dynamics (1-100 ms) and organism behaviour during learning (seconds-minutes). What mechanisms bridge this timescale gap? What are the implications for theories of brain learning? Here I first cover experimental evidence for slow-timescale factors in plasticity induction. Then I review possible underlying cellular and synaptic mechanisms, and insights from recent computational models that incorporate such slow-timescale variables. I conclude that future progress on understanding brain learning across timescales will require both experimental and computational modelling studies that map out the nonlinearities implemented by both fast and slow plasticity mechanisms at synapses, and crucially, their joint interactions.