Critical neural networks with short and long term plasticity
  In recent years self organised critical neuronal models have provided
insights regarding the origin of the experimentally observed avalanching
behaviour of neuronal systems. It has been shown that dynamical synapses, as a
form of short-term plasticity, can cause critical neuronal dynamics. Whereas
long-term plasticity, such as hebbian or activity dependent plasticity, have a
crucial role in shaping the network structure and endowing neural systems with
learning abilities. In this work we provide a model which combines both
plasticity mechanisms, acting on two different time-scales. The measured
avalanche statistics are compatible with experimental results for both the
avalanche size and duration distribution with biologically observed percentages
of inhibitory neurons. The time-series of neuronal activity exhibits temporal
bursts leading to 1/f decay in the power spectrum. The presence of long-term
plasticity gives the system the ability to learn binary rules such as XOR,
providing the foundation of future research on more complicated tasks such as
pattern recognition.
