STDP

Question 1

STDP Introduction

Answer 1

Spike-timing dependant plasticity is induced by tight temporal correlations between the spikes of pre and postsynaptic neurons, in order to determine the magnitude and polarity of plasticity to exert profound functional consequences.
Unlike artificially imposed changes in neural activity often employed to induce plasticity (e.g. tetany), STDP is considered to be a biologically plausible mechanism since STDP relies upon spikes which are a natural currency for neural communication.
Although significant advancements have been made concerning the cellular mechanisms, beyond this basic asymmetric window recent studies have illustrated nuances in the characteristics of STDP as well as alluding to layers of complexity in STDP including its dependence on dendritic location, nonlinear integration of complex spike trains, and the modulation of STDP.

Question 2

Steward et al (1983)

Answer 2

First exemplified the significance of the temporal order of pre/postsynaptic activity in determining the polarity of plasticity.
Varied the relative timing of a strong and weak input from the entorhinal cortex to the DG
Demonstrated that potentiation arose when the weak input preceded the strong input by less than 20ms whilst the converse resulted in depression.