A functional model of adult dentate gyrus neurogenesis

Abstract
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Abstract

In adult dentate gyrus neurogenesis, the link between maturation of newborn neurons and their function, such as behavioral pattern separation, has remained puzzling. By analyzing a theoretical model, we show that the switch from excitation to inhibition of the GABAergic input onto maturing newborn cells is crucial for their proper functional integration. When the GABAergic input is excitatory, cooperativity drives the growth of synapses such that newborn cells become sensitive to stimuli similar to those that activate mature cells. When GABAergic input switches to inhibitory, competition pushes the configuration of synapses onto newborn cells towards stimuli that are different from previously stored ones. This enables the maturing newborn cells to code for concepts that are novel, yet similar to familiar ones. Our theory of newborn cell maturation explains both how adult-born dentate granule cells integrate into the preexisting network and why they promote separation of similar but not distinct patterns.

Data availability

Simulation and plotting scripts can be found at: https://github.com/ogozel/NeurogenesisModel.

The following previously published data sets were used

(1999) The MNIST database of handwritten digits
N/A.

http://yann.lecun.com/exdb/mnist/

Article and author information

Author details

Olivia Gozel

Department of Neurobiology, University of Chicago, Chicago, United States

For correspondence
gozel@uchicago.edu

Competing interests
The authors declare that no competing interests exist.

"This ORCID iD identifies the author of this article:" 0000-0003-2223-4097
Wulfram Gerstner

School of Life Sciences, École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, Lausanne, Switzerland

Competing interests
The authors declare that no competing interests exist.

Funding

Swiss National Science Foundation (no. 200020 184615)

Wulfram Gerstner

European Union Horizon 2020 Framework Program (no. 785907 (HumanBrain Project,SGA2))

Wulfram Gerstner

The funders had no role in study design, data collection and interpretation, or the decision to submit the work for publication.

Copyright

This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License permitting unrestricted use and redistribution provided that the original author and source are credited.