Topic: inhibitory microcircuits

Inhibitory microcircuits play an important role regulating cortical responses to sensory stimuli. Interneurons that inhibit dendritic or somatic integration are gatekeepers for neural activity, synaptic plasticity and the formation of sensory representations. We have been investigating the synaptic plasticity mechanisms underlying the formation of ensembles in olfactory and orbitofrontal cortex. We have been focusing on the roles of three inhibitory neuron classes in gating excitatory synaptic plasticity in olfactory cortex- somatostatin (SST-INs), parvalbumin (PV-INs), and vasoactive intestin

Learning in neuronal circuits requires coordinated modifications of synaptic strengths across hierarchical networks to refine computation and improve behavioral outcomes. This coordination requires solving the credit assignment problem. Yet, how neuronal circuits achieve credit assignment remains a central unsolved question in systems neuroscience [1]. Several modeling studies have suggested putative biological mechanisms for back-propagating error signals through multi-layer networks. These functionally motivated models assume distinct neuronal compartments representing local error signals t