4 ms·
> special cells in the Cerebellum (Purkinje cells), which can even do single-cell learning. As a neuroscience novice, I've always assumed that something about
by ChainOfFools 3y ago
> special cells in the Cerebellum (Purkinje cells), which can even do single-cell learning.
As a neuroscience novice, I've always assumed that something about the gross model of the neuron, as far as I understand it, cannot be correct or is incomplete. Because I never understood why single cells aren't already performing single cell learning, given that there are always far more dendrites than axons.
Since this characteristic turns each neuron into a lossy compression function, there has to be some process by which certain dendrites are considered 'more important' carriers of information than others, in order to make a tie-breaking decision about what to include in the compressed signal, and what to throw out, as the cell decedes whether or not to transmit an impulse (including whether or not to override prior inhibitory signals) back up the axon.
- cubefox 3y agoWell, not all incoming signals get the same weight for the outcoming signal, as the dendrites are e.g. more or less close to the part of the cell where the spikes are generated. But this computation is just analogous to the connection weights together with the activation function in artificial neural networks. That's not what enables classical conditioning in single Cerebellum cells.
- pests 3y agoI think it's possible. When you get down to the biology and chemistry the electrical action potential driving all this results in ion channels opening and closing on both sides to pass on the signal. I totally believe individual dendrite-axon connections can lose or gain strength over time based on an optimization of the efficiency of these ion channels. I think this is above and beyond a simple mathematical weight and the nueron structures around these dendrite-axon pathways change or express their genes differently over time.