Synaptic Plasticity - How Does It Work?

The short answer is that nature has taken advantage of many, many mechanisms. We know at least 20 algorithms for synaptic plasticity that are used in different parts of the brain for different purposes. In all cases, we've been talking about deep learning. That's a model for the cerebral cortex, which is the top of the brain. Well, right under that is the basal ganglia, where I was telling you about the dopamine neurons,. And that's where temporal difference learning works.