Spin Glass Structure of a Neurotrophic Model of Neuronal Development

摘要

Activity-dependent, competitive interactions between pre-synaptic neurons is a key feature of developmental events in the vertebrate nervous system. Most models, however, simply impose rather than seek to understand this competition. In previous work, we have built a model of competition based on recent experimental data implicating a class of growth-promoting molecular factors in competitive interactions. Here we derive some exact solutions of this model and go on to show that the statistical mechanics of a spin glass underlies the model.