Functions
There are a number of hypotheses regarding the function of backpropagation of action potentials. In addition to synaptic plasticity, it is also hypothesized to be involved in dendrodendritic inhibition, boosting synaptic responses, resetting membrane potential, retrograde actions at synapses and conditional axonal output. Backpropagation is believed to help form LTP (long term potentiation) and Hebbian plasticity at hippocampal synapses. Since artificial LTP induction, using microelectrode stimulation, voltage clamp, etc. requires the postsynaptic cell to be slightly depolarized when EPSPs are elicited, backpropagation can serve as the means of depolarization of the postsynaptic cell.
Read more about this topic: Neural Backpropagation
Famous quotes containing the word functions:
“The mind is a finer body, and resumes its functions of feeding, digesting, absorbing, excluding, and generating, in a new and ethereal element. Here, in the brain, is all the process of alimentation repeated, in the acquiring, comparing, digesting, and assimilating of experience. Here again is the mystery of generation repeated.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“Mark the babe
Not long accustomed to this breathing world;
One that hath barely learned to shape a smile,
Though yet irrational of soul, to grasp
With tiny finger—to let fall a tear;
And, as the heavy cloud of sleep dissolves,
To stretch his limbs, bemocking, as might seem,
The outward functions of intelligent man.”
—William Wordsworth (1770–1850)
“Adolescents, for all their self-involvement, are emerging from the self-centeredness of childhood. Their perception of other people has more depth. They are better equipped at appreciating others’ reasons for action, or the basis of others’ emotions. But this maturity functions in a piecemeal fashion. They show more understanding of their friends, but not of their teachers.”
—Terri Apter (20th century)