An aVLSI Basis for Dendritic Adaptation

We have developed and described an analog electronic circuit that adapts the electrotonic properties of a silicon dendrite. The dendrite is modeled by the method of compartmental modeling, consisting of three dendritic compartments each containing a synaptic conductance, and one somatic compartment containing a spiking mechanism. Dendritic synaptic input is represented as an activity signal, which scales the leakage conductance of the dendrite. This adaptive feedback loop ensures a controlled synaptic integration in the dendrite, and so regulates the somatic firing frequency. The general adaptive mechanism can therefore be used for building highly dynamic neural networks.