Unified control of temporal and spatial scales of sensorimotor behavior through neuromodulation of short-term synaptic plasticity

Neuromodulators have been shown to alter the temporal profile of short-term synaptic plasticity (STP); however, the computational function of this neuromodulation remains unexplored. Here, we propose that the neuromodulation of STP provides a general mechanism to scale neural dynamics and motor outputs in time and space. We trained recurrent neural networks that incorporated STP to produce complex motor trajectories-handwritten digits-with different temporal (speed) and spatial (size) scales. Neuromodulation of STP produced temporal and spatial scaling of the learned dynamics and enhanced temporal or spatial generalization compared to standard training of the synaptic weights in the absence of STP. The model also accounted for the results of two experimental studies involving flexible sensorimotor timing. Neuromodulation of STP provides a unified and biologically plausible mechanism to control the temporal and spatial scales of neural dynamics and sensorimotor behaviors.