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The BCM theory of synapse modification at 30: interaction of theory with experiment

Nature Reviews Neuroscience volume 13, pages 798–810 (2012)Cite this article

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Abstract

Thirty years have passed since the publication of Elie Bienenstock, Leon Cooper and Paul Munro's 'Theory for the development of neuron selectivity: orientation specificity and binocular interaction in visual cortex', known as the BCM theory of synaptic plasticity. This theory has guided experimentalists to discover some fundamental properties of synaptic plasticity and has provided a mathematical structure that bridges molecular mechanisms and systems-level consequences of learning and memory storage.

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Figure 1: Information transfer in cortical cells and theories of synaptic modification.
Figure 2: Ocular dominance plasticity in the kitten visual cortex.
Figure 3: Results of BCM simulations in environments using noisy natural images.
Figure 4: Activity patterns that trigger ocular dominance plasticity.
Figure 5: Experimental verification of the φ function and the sliding modification threshold.
Figure 6: Choreography of the ocular dominance shift in the mouse visual cortex.

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Acknowledgements

The authors thank the many colleagues, both theoretical and experimental, with whom they have worked these many years. Our collaborative research has been supported by the US Office of Naval Research, the Army Research Office, the Air Force Office of Scientific Research, the National Science Foundation, the US National Institutes of Health, the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, the Dana Foundation and the Ittleson Family Foundation.

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  1. Department of Physics, Leon N Cooper is at the Institute for Brain and Neural Systems, Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island 02912, USA.,

    Leon N Cooper

  2. Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, Mark F. Bear is at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, and at the Picower Institute for Learning and Memory, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139, USA.,

    Mark F. Bear

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Cooper, L., Bear, M. The BCM theory of synapse modification at 30: interaction of theory with experiment. Nat Rev Neurosci 13, 798–810 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1038/nrn3353

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