Monthly Archives: July 2018

Cellular intelligence, epigenetics, internal memory, learning, Synaptic Plasticity , , , , , ,

Epigenetics and memory

by

Epigenetic modification is a powerful mechanism for the induction, the expression and persistence of long-term memory.

For long-term memory, we need to consider diverse cellular processes. These occur in neurons from different brain regions (in particular hippocampus, cortex, amygdala) during memory consolidation and recall. For instance, long-term changes in kinase expression in the proteome, changes in receptor subunit composition and localization at synaptic/dendritic membranes, epigenetic modifications of chromatin such as DNA methylation and histone methylation in the nucleus, and the posttranslational modifications of histones, including phosphorylation and acetylation, all these play a role. Histone acetylation is of particular interest because a number of known medications exist, which function as histone deacetylase inhibitors (HDACs), i.e. have a potential to increase DNA transcription and memory (more on this in a later post).

Epigenetic changes are important because they define the internal conditions for plasticity for the individual neuron. They underlie for instance, kinase or phosphatase-mediated (de)activations of enzymatic proteins and therefore influence the probability of membrane proteins to become altered by synaptic activation.

Among epigenetic changes, DNA methylation typically acts to alter, often to repress, DNA transcription at cytosine, or CpG islands in vertebrates. DNA methylation is mediated by enzymes such as Tet3, which catalyses an important step in the demethylation of DNA. In dentate gyrus of live rats, it was shown that the expression of Tet3 is greatly increased by LTP – synaptically induced memorization – , suggesting that certain DNA stretches were demethylated [5], and presumably activated. During induction of LTP by high frequency electrical stimulation, DNA methylation is changed specifically for certain genes known for their role in neural plasticity [1]. The expression of neural plasticity genes is widely correlated with the methylation status of the corresponding DNA .

So there is interesting evidence for filtering the induction of plasticity via the epigenetic landscape and modifiers of gene expression, such as HDACs. Substances which act as histone deacetylase inhibitors (HDACs) increase histone acetylation. An interesting result from research on fear suggests that HDACs increase some DNA transcription, and enhance specifically fear extinction memories [2], [3],[4]. 

Cellular intelligence, internal memory, ion channels, Neuromodulation , , , ,

Ion channel expression is not regulated by spiking behavior

by

An important topic to understand intrinsic excitability is the distribution and activation of ion channels. In this respect the co-regulations between ion channels are of significant interest. MacLean et al. (2003) could show that overexpression of an A-type potassium channel by shal-RNA-injection in neurons of the stomatogastric ganglion of the lobster is compensated by upregulation of Ih such that the spiking behavior remained unaltered.

A non functional shal-mutant whose overexpression did not affect spiking had the same effect, which shows that the regulation does not happen at the site of the membrane, by measuring the spiking behavior. In this case, Ih was upregulated, even though IA activity was unaltered, and spiking behavior was increased. (This is in contrast to e.g. O’Leary et al., 2013, who assume homeostatic regulation of ion channel expression at the membrane, by spiking behavior.)

In drosophila-motoneurons the expression of shal and shaker – both responsible for IA – is reciprocally coupled. If one is reduced, the other is upregulated to a constant level of IA activity at the membrane. Other ion channels, like (INAp and IM) are again antagonistic, which means they correlate positively: if one is reduced, the other is reduced as well to achieve the same level of effect (Golowasch2014). There are a number of publications which have all documented similar effects, e.g. (MacLean et al., 2005, Schulz et al., 2007; Tobin et al., 2009; O’Leary et al., 2013).

We must assume that the expression level of ion channels is regulated and sensed inside the cell and that the levels of genes for different ion channels are coupled – by genetic regulation or on the level of RNA regulation.

To summarize: When there is high IA expression, Ih is also upregulated. When one gene responsible for IA is suppressed, the other gene is more highly expressed, to achieve the same level of IA expression. When (INap), a permanent sodium channel, is reduced, (IM), a potassium channel, is also reduced.

It is important to note that these ion channels may compensate for each other in terms of overall spiking behavior, but they have subtly different properties of activation, e.g. by the pattern of spiking or by neuromodulation. For instance, if cell A reduces ion channel currents like INap and IM, compensating to achieve the same spiking behavior, once we apply neuromodulation to muscarinic receptors on A, this will affect IM, but not INap. The behavior of cell A, crudely the same, is now altered under certain conditions.

To model this – other than by a full internal cell model – requires internal state variables which guide ion channel expression, and therefore regulate intrinsic excitability. These variables would model ion channel proteins and their respective interaction, and in this way guarantee acceptable spiking behavior of the cell. This could lead to the idea of an internal module which sets the parameters necessary for the neuron to function. Such an internal module that self-organizes its state variables according to specified objective functions could greatly simplify systems design. Instead of tuning systems parameters by outside methods – which is necessary for ion-channel based models – each neuronal unit itself would be responsible for its ion channels and be able to self-tune them separately from the whole system.

Linked to the idea of internal state variables is the idea of internal memory, which I have referred to several times in this blog. If I have an internal module of co-regulated variables, which set external parameters for each unit, then this module may serve as a latent memory for variables which are not expressed at the membrane at the present time (s. Er81). The time course of expression and activation at the membrane and of internal co-regulation need not be the same. This offers an opportunity for memory inside the cell, separated from information processing within a network of neurons.

Image internal memory, learning, Neural Networks, Neuromodulation, Synaptic Plasticity

Egocentric representations for general input

by

The individual neuron’s state need not be determined only by the inputs received.

(a). It may additionally be seeded with a probability for adaptation that is distributed wrt the graph properties of the neuron (like betweenness centrality, choke points etc.), as well as the neuron’s current intrinsic excitability (IE) (which are related). This seeded probability would correspond to a sensitivity of the neuron to the representation that is produced by the subnetwork. The input representation is transformed by the properties of the subnetwork.

(b). Another way to influence neurons independent of their input is to link them together. This can be done by simulating of neuromodulators (NMs) which influence adaptivity for a subset of neurons within the network. There are then neurons which are linked together and increase or turn on their adaptivity because they share the same NM receptors. Different sets of neurons can become activated and increase their adaptivity, whenever a sufficient level of a NM is reached. An additional learning task is then to identify suitable sets of neurons. For instance, neurons may encode aspects of the input representation that result from additional, i.e. attentional, signals co-occuring with the input.

(c). Finally, both E and I neurons are known to consist of morphologically and genetically distinct types. This opens up additional ways of creating heterogeneous networks from these neuron types and have distinct adaptation rules for them. Some of the neurons may not even be adaptive, or barely adaptive, while others may be adaptive only once, (write once, read-only), or be capable only of upregulation, until they have received their limit. (This applies to synaptic and intrinsic adaptation). Certain neurons may have to follow the idea of unlimited adaptation in both directions in order to make such models viable.

Similar variants in neuron behavior are known from technical applications of ANNs: hyperparameters that link individual parameters into groups (‘weight sharing’) have been used, terms like ‘bypassing’ mean that some neurons do not adjust, only transmit, and ‘gating’ means that neurons may regulate the extent of transmission of a signal (cf. LSTM, ScardapaneSetal2018). Separately, the model ADAM (or ADAMW) has been proposed which computes adaptive learning rates for each neuron and achieves fast convergence.

A neuron-centric biological network model (‘neuronal automaton’) offers a systematic approach to such differences in adaptation. As suggested, biological neurons have different capacities for adaptation and this may extend to their synaptic connections as well. The model would allow to learn different activation functions and different adaptivity for each neuron, helped by linking neurons into groups and using fixed genetic types in the setup of the network. In each specific case the input is represented by the structural and functional constraints of the network and therefore transformed into an internal, egocentric representation.

Cellular intelligence, General, Signal Transduction, Systems Biology , , , ,

Antagonistic regulation for cellular intelligence

by

Cellular intelligence refers to information processing in single cells, i.e. genetic regulation, protein signaling and metabolic processing, all tightly integrated with each other. The goal is to uncover general ‘rules of life’ wrt e.g. the transmission of information, homeostatic and multistable regulation, learning and memory (habituation, sensitization etc.). These principles extend from unicellular organisms like bacteria to specialized cells, which are parts of a multicellular organism.

A prominent example is the ubiquitous role of feedback cycles in cellular information processing. These are often nested, or connected to a central hub, as a set of negative feedback cycles, sometimes interspersed with positive feedback cycles as well. Starting from Norbert Wiener’s work on cybernetics, we have gained a deeper understanding of this regulatory motif, and the complex modules that can be built from a multitude of these cycles by modeling as well as mathematical analysis.

Another motif that is similar in significance and ubiquity is antagonistic interaction. A prototypical antagonistic interaction consists of a signal, two pathways, one negative, one positive, and a target. The signal connects to the target by both pathways. No further parts are required.

On the face of it, this interaction seems redundant. When you connect a signal to a target by a positive and a negative connection, the amount of change is a sum of both connections, and for this, one connection should be sufficient. But this motif is actually very widespread and powerful, and there are two main aspects to this:

A. Gearshifting, scale-invariance or digitalization of input: for an input signal that can occur at different strengths, the antagonistic transmission allows to shift the signal to a lower level/gear with a limited bandwidth compared to the input range. This can also be described as scale-invariance or standardization of the input, or in the extreme case, digitalization of an analog input signal.

B. Fast onset-slow offset response curves: in this case the double transmission lines are used with a time delay. The positive interaction is fast, the negative interaction is slow. Therefore there is a fast peak response with a slower relaxation time– useful in many biological contexts, where fast reaction times are crucial.

Negative feedback cycles which can achieve similar effects by acting on the signal itself: the positive signal is counteracted by a negative input which reduces the input signal. The result is again a fast peak response followed by a downregulation to an equilibrium value. The advantage for antagonistic interactions is that the original signal is left intact, which is useful. because the same signal may act on other targets unchanged. In a feedback cycle the signal itself is consumed by the feedback interaction. The characteristic shape of the signal, fast peak response with a slower downregulation, may therefore arise from different structures.

The type of modules that can be built from both antagonistic interactions and feedback have not been explored systematically. However, one example is morphogenetic patterning, often referred to as ‘Turing patterns’, which relies on a positive feedback cycle by an activator, plus antagonistic interactions (activator/inhibitor) with a time delay for the inhibitor.

 turing_pattern