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Background : The roles of neuromodulation in a neural network, such as in a cortical microcolumn, are still incompletely understood. Neuromodulation influences neural processing by presynaptic and postsynaptic regulation of synaptic efficacy. Neuromodulation also affects ion channels and intrinsic excitability. Methods : Synaptic efficacy modulation is an effective way to rapidly alter network density and topology. We alter network topology and density to measure the effect on spike synchronization. We also operate with differently parameterized neuron models which alter the neuron's intrinsic excitability, i.e., activation function. Results : We find that (a) fast synaptic efficacy modulation influences the amount of correlated spiking in a network. Also, (b) synchronization in a network influences the read-out of intrinsic properties. Highly synchronous input drives neurons, such that differences in intrinsic properties disappear, while asynchronous input lets intrinsic properties determine output behavior. Thus, altering network topology can alter the balance between intrinsically vs. synaptically driven network activity. Conclusion : We conclude that neuromodulation may allow a network to shift between a more synchronized transmission mode and a more asynchronous intrinsic read-out mode. This has significant implications for our understanding of the flexibility of cortical computations., Competing Interests: No competing interests were disclosed.

In this paper, we document lognormal distributions for spike rates, synaptic weights and intrinsic excitability (gain) for neurons in various brain areas, such as auditory or visual cortex, hippocampus, cerebellum, striatum, midbrain nuclei. We find a remarkable consistency of heavy-tailed, specifically lognormal, distributions for rates, weights and gains in all brain areas. The difference between strongly recurrent and feed-forward connectivity (cortex vs. striatum and cerebellum), neurotransmitter (GABA (striatum) or glutamate (cortex)) or the level of activation (low in cortex, high in Purkinje cells and midbrain nuclei) turns out to be irrelevant for this feature. Logarithmic scale distribution of weights and gains appears as a functional property that is present everywhere.  Secondly, we created a generic neural model to show that Hebbian learning will create and maintain lognormal distributions. We could prove with the model that not only weights, but also intrinsic gains, need to have strong Hebbian learning in order to produce and maintain the experimentally attested distributions. This settles a long-standing question about the type of plasticity exhibited by intrinsic excitability., Competing Interests: Competing interests: No competing interests were disclosed.