{
  "abstract": "Spontaneous population bursts repeatedly expose synapses to correlated spike activity, but it is unclear whether such events reinforce pre-existing synaptic weight differences when precise firing order carries little information. We asked this in a conductance-based model of a bursting neuronal culture: 48 excitatory and 12 inhibitory stomatogastric-ganglion (STG) model neurons with sparse recurrent connectivity, short-term depression, and pair-based spike-timing-dependent plasticity (STDP), with every prediction and falsifier committed to a version-controlled record before the corresponding run. Across two cohorts of 10 connectivity wirings - realizations of one model, not independent preparations - stronger synapses consistently received greater net potentiation than weaker ones, although the preregistered magnitude criterion was not met. The spike statistic most closely associated with this sorting was not first-spike latency: stronger synapses instead showed a very small but highly consistent excess of pre-before-post spike pairs, 0.2-0.35 percentage points, accumulated over approximately 10^4 pairs per synapse in 60 s (median 8,960 in the out-of-sample cohort; approximately 3 x 10^6 per wiring). In a preregistered intervention, shortening bursts by 41% at approximately matched burst rate increased the sorting measure by about an order of magnitude in all five wirings. A second, physiologically distinct perturbation reproduced the relationship with realized burst duration, but duration could not be separated from per-burst spike count. All interventional evidence is computational. We then preregistered an observational test of the corresponding prediction in 16 archived recordings of developing cortical cultures. The predicted strength-ordered pair excess was not detected, and the predicted negative relationship with burst duration was absent. The former is a bounded null - the recordings exclude effects above +0.32 percentage points but cannot resolve the model's approximately 0.2-point magnitude; the latter was adequately powered under the preregistered criterion. A consistent positive latency-strength relationship, unpredicted by the model, was observed. The study therefore establishes a reproducible sorting phenomenon within a specific computational model and a testable burst-shortening prediction, but does not establish that the mechanism operates in living cortical networks; an intervention on cultured networks with an independently validated measure of synaptic strength is the decisive test.",
  "abstract_shown": true,
  "affiliations": [
    "Luviner, Parma, Italy"
  ],
  "article_type": "New results",
  "arxiv": null,
  "author_total": 2,
  "authors": [
    {
      "affs": [
        0
      ],
      "name": "F. Groppi"
    },
    {
      "name": "J. Ferrari"
    }
  ],
  "bibtex": "https://research.draconitic.com/paper/66d2kjd2gf2cr.bib",
  "cited_by": 0,
  "doi": "10.64898/2026.09.03.749248",
  "fulltext_url": "https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.09.03.749248v1.full",
  "id": "66d2kjd2gf2cr",
  "issns": [],
  "landing_url": "https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.09.03.749248v1",
  "language": null,
  "licence": "CC-BY",
  "licence_label": "CC BY",
  "licence_source": "article",
  "licence_url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/",
  "metadata_licence": null,
  "native_subjects": [
    [
      "biorxiv",
      "neuroscience"
    ],
    [
      "openalex",
      "2805|Neural dynamics and brain function"
    ]
  ],
  "openalex": "W7207669773",
  "pdf_url": "https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.09.03.749248v1.full.pdf",
  "pmcid": null,
  "pmid": null,
  "published": "2026-09-03",
  "publisher": null,
  "ris": "https://research.draconitic.com/paper/66d2kjd2gf2cr.ris",
  "sources": [
    {
      "first_seen": "2026-10-30T12:20:18Z",
      "native_id": "10.64898/2026.09.03.749248",
      "source": "biorxiv",
      "url": "https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.09.03.749248v1"
    }
  ],
  "subjects": [
    {
      "field": "biology",
      "origin": "biorxiv:neuroscience",
      "subfield": "neuroscience"
    }
  ],
  "title": "Weak pre-before-post pair biases sort synaptic weights in a conductance-based model of spontaneous network bursting",
  "title_text": "Weak pre-before-post pair biases sort synaptic weights in a conductance-based model of spontaneous network bursting",
  "type": "preprint",
  "updated_at": "2026-10-30T12:20:18Z",
  "url": "https://research.draconitic.com/paper/66d2kjd2gf2cr",
  "venue": "bioRxiv",
  "versions": []
}