Local design principles at hippocampal synapsesrevealed by an energy-information trade-off

Abstract

Synapses across different brain regions display distinct structure-function relationships. We investigate the interplay of fundamental design principles that shape the transmission properties of the excitatory CA3-CA1 pyramidal cell connection, a prototypic synapse for studying the mechanisms of learning in the hippocampus. This small synapse is characterized by probabilistic release of transmitter, which is markedly facilitated in response to naturally occurring trains of action potentials. Based on a physiologically realistic computational model of the CA3 presynaptic terminal, we show how unreliability and short-term dynamics of vesicle release work together to regulate the trade-off of information transfer versus energy use. We propose that individual CA3-CA1 synapses are designed to operate at close to maximum possible capacity of information transfer in an efficient manner. Experimental measurements reveal a wide range of vesicle release probabilities at hippocampal synapses, which may be a necessary consequence of long-term plasticity and homeostatic mechanisms that manifest as presynaptic modifications of release probability. We show that the timescales and magnitude of short-term plasticity render synaptic information transfer nearly independent of differences in release probability. Thus, individual synapses transmit optimally while maintaining a heterogeneous distribution of presynaptic strengths indicative of synaptically-encoded memory representations. Our results support the view that organizing principles that are evident on higher scales of neural organization percolate down to the design of an individual synapse.