Astrocyte's self-repairing characteristics improve working memory in spiking neuronal networks

Pedram Naghieh; Abolfazl Delavar; Mahmood Amiri; Herbert Peremans

doi:10.1016/j.isci.2023.108241

Astrocyte's self-repairing characteristics improve working memory in spiking neuronal networks

iScience. 2023 Oct 21;26(12):108241. doi: 10.1016/j.isci.2023.108241. eCollection 2023 Dec 15.

Authors

Pedram Naghieh¹, Abolfazl Delavar¹, Mahmood Amiri^{1

2}, Herbert Peremans²

Affiliations

¹ Medical Technology Research Center, Institute of Health Technology, Kermanshah University of Medical Sciences, Kermanshah, Iran.
² Department of Engineering Management, University of Antwerp, Antwerp, Belgium.

Abstract

Astrocytes play a significant role in the working memory (WM) mechanism, yet their contribution to spiking neuron-astrocyte networks (SNAN) is underexplored. This study proposes a non-probabilistic SNAN incorporating a self-repairing (SR) mechanism through endocannabinoid pathways to facilitate WM function. Four experiments were conducted with different damaging patterns, replicating close-to-realistic synaptic impairments. Simulation results suggest that the SR process enhances WM performance by improving the consistency of neuronal firing. Moreover, the intercellular astrocytic [Ca]²⁺ transmission via gap junctions improves WM and SR processes. With increasing damage, WM and SR activities initially fail for non-matched samples and then for smaller and minimally overlapping matched samples. Simulation results also indicate that the inclusion of the SR mechanism in both random and continuous forms of damage improves the resilience of the WM by approximately 20%. This study highlights the importance of astrocytes in synaptically impaired networks.

Keywords: Biological sciences; Cellular neuroscience; Neuroscience.