Impact of Astrocytic Coverage of Synapses on the Short-Term Memory of a Computational Neuron-Astrocyte Network

Zonglun Li, Yuliya Tsybina, Susanna Gordleeva and Alexey Zaikin ()
Additional contact information
Zonglun Li: Department of Mathematics, University College London, London WC1E 6BT, UK
Yuliya Tsybina: Department of Neurotechnology, Lobachevsky State University of Nizhny Novgorod, 603022 Nizhny Novgorod, Russia
Susanna Gordleeva: Department of Neurotechnology, Lobachevsky State University of Nizhny Novgorod, 603022 Nizhny Novgorod, Russia
Alexey Zaikin: Department of Mathematics, University College London, London WC1E 6BT, UK

Mathematics, 2022, vol. 10, issue 18, 1-20

Abstract: Working memory refers to the capability of the nervous system to selectively retain short-term memories in an active state. The long-standing viewpoint is that neurons play an indispensable role and working memory is encoded by synaptic plasticity. Furthermore, some recent studies have shown that calcium signaling assists the memory processes and the working memory might be affected by the astrocyte density. Over the last few decades, growing evidence has also revealed that astrocytes exhibit diverse coverage of synapses which are considered to participate in neuronal activities. However, very little effort has yet been made to attempt to shed light on the potential correlations between these observations. Hence, in this article, we leverage a computational neuron–astrocyte model to study the short-term memory performance subject to various astrocytic coverage and we demonstrate that the short-term memory is susceptible to this factor. Our model may also provide plausible hypotheses for the various sizes of calcium events as they are reckoned to be correlated with the astrocytic coverage.

Keywords: neuron; astrocyte; network; short-term memory; spatial frequency; computational biology (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2227-7390/10/18/3275/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2227-7390/10/18/3275/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jmathe:v:10:y:2022:i:18:p:3275-:d:910891

Access Statistics for this article

Mathematics is currently edited by Ms. Emma He

More articles in Mathematics from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().