IEEE Trans Neural Netw Learn Syst. 2013 May;24(5):789-99. doi: 10.1109/TNNLS.2013.2245678.
Understanding the underlying mechanism of the propagation of neuronal activities within the brain is a fundamental issue in neuroscience. Traditionally, communication and information processing have been exclusively considered as the province of synaptic coupling between neurons. Astrocytes, however, have recently been acknowledged as active partners in neuronal information processing. So, it is more reasonable and accurate to study the nature of neuronal signal propagation with the participation of astrocytes. In this paper, we first propose a feedforward neuronal-astrocytic network (FNAsN), which includes the mutual neuron-astrocyte interaction. Besides, we also consider the unreliability of both the synaptic transmission between neurons and the coupling between neurons and astrocytes. Then, the performance of firing rate propagation through the proposed FNAsN is studied through a series of simulations. Results show that the astrocytes can mediate neuronal activities, and consequently improve the performance of firing rate propagation, especially in a weak and noisy environment. From this point of view, astrocytes can be regarded as a realistic internal source of noise, which collaborates with an externally applied weak noise to prevent synchronous neuron firing within the same layer and thus to ensure reliable transmission.
理解大脑内神经元活动传播的潜在机制是神经科学中的一个基本问题。传统上，神经元之间的突触耦合被认为是通讯和信息处理的唯一领域。然而，星形胶质细胞最近被认为是神经元信息处理的积极参与者。因此，在星形胶质细胞参与的情况下研究神经元信号传播的性质更为合理和准确。在本文中，我们首先提出了一个前馈神经元-星形胶质细胞网络（FNAsN），其中包括神经元-星形胶质细胞的相互作用。此外，我们还考虑了神经元之间的突触传递和神经元与星形胶质细胞之间的耦合的不可靠性。然后，通过一系列模拟研究了所提出的 FNAsN 中通过发放率传播的性能。结果表明，星形胶质细胞可以介导神经元活动，从而提高发放率传播的性能，尤其是在弱噪声环境中。从这个角度来看，星形胶质细胞可以被视为一种现实的内部噪声源，它与外部施加的弱噪声协同作用，防止同一层内神经元的同步放电，从而确保可靠的传递。
