An investigation into the effective role of astrocyte in the hippocampus pattern separation process: A computational modeling study

Abstract

A physiologically realistic three layer neuron-astrocyte network model is used to evaluate the biological mechanism in pattern separation. The innovative feature of the model is the use of a combination of three elements: neuron, interneuron and astrocyte. In the input layer, a pyramidal neuron receives input patterns from stimulus current, while in the middle layer there are two pyramidal neurons coupled with two inhibitory interneurons and an astrocyte. Finally, in the third layer, a pyramidal neuron produces the output of the model by integrating the output of two neurons from the middle layer resulting from inhibitory and excitatory connections among neurons, interneurons and the astrocyte. Results of computer simulations show that the neuron-astrocyte network within the hippocampal dentate gyrus can generate diverse, complex and different output patterns to given inputs. It is concluded that astrocytes within the dentate gyrus play an important role in the pattern separation process.

Keywords: Astrocyte; Computational model; Hippocampus; Memory; Pattern separation.