Gils, Stephan A. van

Heida, Tjitske

Lourens, Marcel A.J.

Meijer, Hil G.E.

Nirody, Jasmine A.

BMC Neuroscience

English

PubMed

Marcel AJ Lourens

Jasmine A Nirody

Hil GE Meijer

Tjitske Heida

Stephan A van Gils

Crossref

POSTER PRESENTATION Open AccessThe effect of spike time dependent plasticityon activity patterns in the basal gangliaMarcel AJ Lourens1*, Jasmine A Nirody2, Hil GE Meijer1, Tjitske Heida3, Stephan A van Gils1From Twentieth Annual Computational Neuroscience Meeting: CNS*2011Stockholm, Sweden. 23-28 July 2011BackgroundPathophysiology of Parkinson’s disease (PD) ischaracterized by increased firing rates of cells in thebasal ganglia, a tendency toward bursting and abnormalsynchronization in cells of subthalamic nucleus (STN)and globus pallidus pars externa (GPe) [1]. In advancedPD, deep brain stimulation (DBS) can be used to disruptthis pathological activity. The standard protocol for DBSis continuous high frequency stimulation of target cells,such as STN. It has been proposed that short-durationstimulation protocols may also disrupt the pathologicalactivity [2]. The mechanism underlying this protocol issupposedly synaptic plasticity. The goal of this study isto investigate, with a biophysically plausible model, therole of synaptic plasticity in stabilizing firing patterns inthe basal ganglia.MethodWe use a STN-GPe network model consisting of 8-20STN and GPe cells connected to each other via a sparsestructured architecture [3]. The dynamics of each cell isdescribed by a single-compartment conductance-basedmodel. We change the weights of the excitatory projec-tions from STN to GPe with a pre-post spike-timingdependent plasticity (STDP) rule. We apply DBS as atrain of positive current pulses injected directly intoeach STN cell.ResultsDepending on both cell and synaptic parameters, thenetwork model without STDP displays a variety of activ-ity patterns, including synchronous, correlated dynamicsand irregular firing. In the model with STDP, the nearlyclustered activity patterns disappears and we observeonly irregular firing or synchronized activity. Applicationof DBS replaces the clustered activity by high frequencyfiring. Switching DBS off, the network without STDPreturns to a pathological activity pattern. In contrast,with STDP the temporary application of DBS changesthe connectivity such that the network does not fallback to the clustered activity.DiscussionSynaptic plasticity is the nervous system’s way to learnand adapt to sensory inputs, and this adaptation canstrengthen both desired and pathological states. STDPpushes network dynamics to irregular (health) or syn-chronized (pathological) state, depending on parametervalues. Moreover, our results suggest that DBS can useSTDP to teach the network to fire in a less pathologicalmanner. This teaching ability of DBS can be exploitedto develop more efficient stimulation protocols.AcknowledgementsThe authors gratefully acknowledge the support of the BrainGain Smart MixProgramme of the Netherlands Ministry of Economic Affairs and theNetherlands Ministry of Education, Culture and Science.Author details1Department of Applied Mathematics, University of Twente, Enschede, 7500AE, The Netherlands. 2New York Medical College, Valhalla, NY 10595, USA.3Department of Electrical Engineering, University of Twente, Enschede, 7500AE, The Netherlands.Published: 18 July 2011References1. Brown P: Oscillatory nature of human basal ganglia activity: Relationshipto the pathophysiology of Parkinson’s disease. Movement Disorder 2003,18(4):357-363.2. Hauptmann C, Tass PA: Cumulative and after-effects of short and weakcoordinated reset stimulation: a modeling study. Journal of NeuralEngineering 2009, 6:016004.* Correspondence: M.A.J.Lourens@utwente.nl1Department of Applied Mathematics, University of Twente, Enschede, 7500AE, The NetherlandsFull list of author information is available at the end of the articleLourens et al. BMC Neuroscience 2011, 12(Suppl 1):P351http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2202/12/S1/P351© 2011 Lourens et al; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative CommonsAttribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction inany medium, provided the original work is properly cited.3. Terman D, Rubin JE, Yew AC, Wilson CJ: Activity patterns in a model forthe subthalamopallidal network of the basal ganglia. The Journal ofNeuroscience 2002, 22(7):2963-2976.4. Morrison A, Diesmann M, Gerstner W: Phenomenological models ofsynaptic plasticity based on spike timing. Biological Cybernetics 2008,98(6):459-478.doi:10.1186/1471-2202-12-S1-P351Cite this article as: Lourens et al.: The effect of spike time dependentplasticity on activity patterns in the basal ganglia. BMC Neuroscience2011 12(Suppl 1):P351.Submit your next manuscript to BioMed Centraland take full advantage of: • Convenient online submission• Thorough peer review• No space constraints or color figure charges• Immediate publication on acceptance• Inclusion in PubMed, CAS, Scopus and Google Scholar• Research which is freely available for redistributionSubmit your manuscript at www.biomedcentral.com/submitLourens et al. BMC Neuroscience 2011, 12(Suppl 1):P351http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2202/12/S1/P351Page 2 of 2

The effect of spike time dependent plasticity on activity patterns in the basal ganglia

Springer - Publisher Connector

POSTER PRESENTATION Open Access
The effect of spike time dependent plasticity
on activity patterns in the basal ganglia
Marcel AJ Lourens1*, Jasmine A Nirody2, Hil GE Meijer1, Tjitske Heida3, Stephan A van Gils1
From Twentieth Annual Computational Neuroscience Meeting: CNS*2011
Stockholm, Sweden. 23-28 July 2011
Background
Pathophysiology of Parkinson’s disease (PD) is
characterized by increased firing rates of cells in the
basal ganglia, a tendency toward bursting and abnormal
synchronization in cells of subthalamic nucleus (STN)
and globus pallidus pars externa (GPe) [1]. In advanced
PD, deep brain stimulation (DBS) can be used to disrupt
this pathological activity. The standard protocol for DBS
is continuous high frequency stimulation of target cells,
such as STN. It has been proposed that short-duration
stimulation protocols may also disrupt the pathological
activity [2]. The mechanism underlying this protocol is
supposedly synaptic plasticity. The goal of this study is
to investigate, with a biophysically plausible model, the
role of synaptic plasticity in stabilizing firing patterns in
the basal ganglia.
Method
We use a STN-GPe network model consisting of 8-20
STN and GPe cells connected to each other via a sparse
structured architecture [3]. The dynamics of each cell is
described by a single-compartment conductance-based
model. We change the weights of the excitatory projec-
tions from STN to GPe with a pre-post spike-timing
dependent plasticity (STDP) rule. We apply DBS as a
train of positive current pulses injected directly into
each STN cell.
Results
Depending on both cell and synaptic parameters, the
network model without STDP displays a variety of activ-
ity patterns, including synchronous, correlated dynamics
and irregular firing. In the model with STDP, the nearly
clustered activity patterns disappears and we observe
only irregular firing or synchronized activity. Application
of DBS replaces the clustered activity by high frequency
firing. Switching DBS off, the network without STDP
returns to a pathological activity pattern. In contrast,
with STDP the temporary application of DBS changes
the connectivity such that the network does not fall
back to the clustered activity.
Discussion
Synaptic plasticity is the nervous system’s way to learn
and adapt to sensory inputs, and this adaptation can
strengthen both desired and pathological states. STDP
pushes network dynamics to irregular (health) or syn-
chronized (pathological) state, depending on parameter
values. Moreover, our results suggest that DBS can use
STDP to teach the network to fire in a less pathological
manner. This teaching ability of DBS can be exploited
to develop more efficient stimulation protocols.
Acknowledgements
The authors gratefully acknowledge the support of the BrainGain Smart Mix
Programme of the Netherlands Ministry of Economic Affairs and the
Netherlands Ministry of Education, Culture and Science.
Author details
1Department of Applied Mathematics, University of Twente, Enschede, 7500
AE, The Netherlands. 2New York Medical College, Valhalla, NY 10595, USA.
3Department of Electrical Engineering, University of Twente, Enschede, 7500
AE, The Netherlands.
Published: 18 July 2011
References
1. Brown P: Oscillatory nature of human basal ganglia activity: Relationship
to the pathophysiology of Parkinson’s disease. Movement Disorder 2003,
18(4):357-363.
2. Hauptmann C, Tass PA: Cumulative and after-effects of short and weak
coordinated reset stimulation: a modeling study. Journal of Neural
Engineering 2009, 6:016004.
* Correspondence: M.A.J.Lourens@utwente.nl
1Department of Applied Mathematics, University of Twente, Enschede, 7500
AE, The Netherlands
Full list of author information is available at the end of the article
Lourens et al. BMC Neuroscience 2011, 12(Suppl 1):P351
http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2202/12/S1/P351
© 2011 Lourens et al; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons
Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in
any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
3. Terman D, Rubin JE, Yew AC, Wilson CJ: Activity patterns in a model for
the subthalamopallidal network of the basal ganglia. The Journal of
Neuroscience 2002, 22(7):2963-2976.
4. Morrison A, Diesmann M, Gerstner W: Phenomenological models of
synaptic plasticity based on spike timing. Biological Cybernetics 2008,
98(6):459-478.
doi:10.1186/1471-2202-12-S1-P351
Cite this article as: Lourens et al.: The effect of spike time dependent
plasticity on activity patterns in the basal ganglia. BMC Neuroscience
2011 12(Suppl 1):P351.
Submit your next manuscript to BioMed Central
and take full advantage of: 
• Convenient online submission
• Thorough peer review
• No space constraints or color figure charges
• Immediate publication on acceptance
• Inclusion in PubMed, CAS, Scopus and Google Scholar
• Research which is freely available for redistribution
Submit your manuscript at 
www.biomedcentral.com/submit
Lourens et al. BMC Neuroscience 2011, 12(Suppl 1):P351
http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2202/12/S1/P351
Page 2 of 2


Lourens, Marcel Antonius Johannes

Meijer, Hil Gaétan Ellart

van Gils, Stephanus A.

NARCIS 

University of Twente Research Information

Cumulative and after-effects of short and weak coordinated reset stimulation: a modeling study.

P: Oscillatory nature of human basal ganglia activity: Relationship to the pathophysiology of Parkinson’s disease. Movement Disorder

Phenomenological models of synaptic plasticity based on spike timing. Biological Cybernetics

Submit your next manuscript to BioMed Central and take full advantage of: • Convenient online submission • Thorough peer review • No space constraints or color ﬁgure charges • Immediate publication on acceptance

https://ris.utwente.nl/ws/files/5322379/Lourens_CNS2011.pdf

The effect of spike time dependent plasticity on activity patterns in the basal ganglia

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