Previous semesters work

The goal of my previous semesters project is to simulate short term

plasticity in a synapse. The input is a current into the postsynaptic cell. The
output is the post-synaptic voltage.
The post-synaptic neuron uses the integrate-and-fire model, because action
potentials were not the main focus. We only needed to know when an action
potential occurs, not how. So the equation for action potentials is:
I ( t )=

V ( t )E leak
dV (t)
+C
(1)
R
dT

Where

I (t )

is the input, either in the form of an injected current, or

synaptic current. Current injection is straightforward: the function I(t) in this

case is described by pulse length, and number of pulses.
When

I (t )

is the synaptic current, it is the result of action potentials in the

previous synapse, and needs to be calculated:

I syn ( t )=( V ( t )E syn ) P s (t)(2)
Where

Esyn

is the synaptic voltage (a known parameter), and

Ps (t ) is the

synaptic conductance, measured as the probability of synaptic vesicle release.

Ps (t ) is determined as:
Ps (t )=Pmax B ( y 1( t) y 2 (t) ) (3)
Where

y 1 (t)

is the probability of vesicle opening, and

y 2 (t)

is the probability of

vesicle closing. These two values are found iteratively:

y 1 ( t +1 )= y 1 ( t ) +0.01

y 2 ( t +1 )= y 2 ( t ) +0.01

y1 ( t )
( 4)
1

( )

y2 ( t )
( 5)
2

( )

The value B is a normalization constant to ensure the maximum value of

Ps (t ) is 1.

 rise
1

rise 1
2

(( ) ( ) )

B= 2
1

2
1

(6)

And rise is the rise time of the synapse, calculate as4:

rise =

1 2
(7)
1 2

Finally, in order to simulate short term plasticity,

Ps (t )

is modified by values

D and F, respectively synaptic depression, and synaptic facilitation. These are the
plasticity variables, found to be:

D (t +1 )=d D(t )(8)

F ( t+ 1 )=F ( t )+ f ( 9)

After the action potential, both D and F recover exponentially back to 1 as

described by the following differential equation5:
D

dD ( t )
=1D ( t )( 10 )
dt

dF(t)
=1F ( t ) (11)
dt

More details on the implementation of these equations, as well as graphs,

are found in the report.