Computational Neuroscience Seminar

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Stochastic vesicle release as a mechanism of facilitation and depression in synaptic transmission

Speaker: Charles S. Peskin (joint work with Calvin Zhang-Molina), Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences, New York University

Location: Warren Weaver Hall 1314

Date: Tuesday, September 16, 2025, 12:45 p.m.

Synopsis:

Communication at a chemical synapse in the nervous system is a highly stochastic process, in which docked vesicles filled with neurotransmitter randomly release or fail to release their contents into the synaptic cleft upon the arrival of an action potential at the presynaptic terminal.  Aside from introducing noise, this process is a source of presynaptic plasticity involving two competing effects, known as depression and facilitation.  Frequent arrival of action potentials depletes the number of docked vesicles, and this is the source of depression, but it is also the case that frequent arrival of action potentials increases the probability of release of any particular docked vesicle, and this is the source of facilitation. Far from canceling each other out, these two phenomena interact in an interesting dynamical way that enables the synapse to function as a high-pass or as a low-pass filter depending on the carrier frequency of the neuronal spike train.