Associative Network Models of Hippocampal Declarative Memory Function
- When?
- Friday 21 January 2011, 15:30 to 16:30
- Where?
- 39BB02
- Open to:
- Staff, Students
- Speaker:
- Dr Daniel Bush
The hippocampus is widely believed to mediate mammalian declarative memory function, and it has been demonstrated that single pyramidal neurons in this cortical region can encode for the presence of multiple spatial and non-spatial stimuli. Furthermore, the rate and phase of firing - with respect to theta oscillations in the local field potential – can be dissociated, and may thus encode for separate variables. This has led to the suggestion that hippocampal processing may operate using a dual (rate and temporal) coding mechanism.
In computational neuroscience, associative networks have been extensively examined as prototypical models of declarative memory function, and the CA3 region of the hippocampus is believed to represent their biological correlate. Despite their success in replicating key features of declarative memory and learning, associative network models have often been criticised for their failure to incorporate prominent experimentally observed features of neural and synaptic dynamics in CA3, including theta oscillations, dual coding and spike-timing dependent plasticity (STDP).
In this talk, Dr Bush will present a novel, biologically inspired auto-associative network model of the CA3 region that utilises theta phase precession and STDP in order to simultaneously store and recall dual coded patterns of activity. This integrates previous rate and temporally coded models of hippocampal function and provides them with a firmer basis in modern neurobiology. He will finish by discussing current modelling, future extensions of this work, and the wider implications for theories of hippocampal declarative memory function.
Part of the NICE Research Group series of presentations
