Modelling place field formation in hippocampus considering recurrent connections in CA3 and STDP

Abstract

In this work we propose a model for place field formation in hippocampus which takes into account the role of recurrent structure of CA3, a sub-region of hippocampus. In this model inputs from entorhinal cortex and dentate gyrus enter CA3 and together with the recurrent neural structure of CA3 form place fields. The model is implemented by considering neuron-glia interactions and Spike timing-dependent plasticity in CA3 neuronal network in order to introduce a biologically plausible model. Simulation results demonstrate that the proposed model is able to predict biological observations recorded in the literature to a large extend. Finally, after modifying the proposed model to adapt it to a behaviour corresponding to decrease in glutamate uptake by postsynaptic neurons, which is one of the neural dysfunctions occurring in Alzheimer's disease (AD), the model shows the same changes in the place field formation as is observed in AD. This observation persuades us to work more on this model to prepare a substrate for studying AD disease and its impact on place field formation more deeply.