Learning activity ramps on a behavioral timescale with a biologically plausible plasticity window.

<p><b>A</b>-<b>B</b> For orthogonal input patterns (exactly one presynaptic spike arrives at each synapse during 2 s) (A) and a somatic input after 1800 ms (<i>g</i>_<i>E</i> = 15 nS during green shading in B and C, <i>g</i>_<i>E</i> = 0 otherwise), the learned postsynaptic firing rate has a similar time course as the somatic input if (B, lines from light gray to black: postsynaptic firing rate after 100, …, 1000 training sessions). <b>C</b> If (with <i>τ</i> = 9 ms), the learned postsynaptic firing rate ramps up with an effective time constant of <i>τ</i>_<i>eff</i> = 600 ms towards the onset of the somatic input. The theoretical result is in good agreement with the simulation (dashed red line: computed by <a href="http://www.ploscompbiol.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pcbi.1005003#pcbi.1005003.e014" target="_blank">Eq 10</a>). During training, the 2 s long pattern of dendritic and the somatic inputs is periodically repeated.