Cortical learning through the spike-timing-dependent plasticity modulated by intrinsic membrane potential fluctuation

Cortical neurons exhibit membrane fluctuations and spontaneous transitions between distinct different two states characterized by subthreshold level of membrane potential. It has been known by modeling study that the mechanism of the spontaneous fluctuation originates from not only reverberation in a cortical circuit but intrinsic factor at a single neuron level. The two-state transitions are widely found in many brain regions and these transitions typically occurred spontaneously and synchronously. However, its computational advantage is still unclear. In this study, we investigated synaptic learning for external inputs in a model neuron whose dynamics of membrane potential fluctuation was modulated through the modification of ionic channel dynamics. It was observed that the membrane fluctuation could modulate the learning property to sequential inputs through the spike-timing-dependent plasticity.