83,755 research outputs found
Processing with cell assemblies
Cell assemblies (CAs) were posited by Hebb almost 60 years ago as the unit of representation in the brain. Recent results in the field of neuroscience indicate that CAs are likely to exist, at least in the mammalian brain. The CABot project uses simulations of CAs formed from individual neurons as a basis for learning and behaviour. This paper proves that a network of CAs, as described by Hebb and as implemented in CABot, is complete with respect to structured program theory. It follows that it is possible to implement the fundamental operations of program execution in a biological network
Neural Mechanisms for Information Compression by Multiple Alignment, Unification and Search
This article describes how an abstract framework for perception and cognition may be realised in terms of neural mechanisms and neural processing.
This framework — called information compression by multiple alignment, unification and search (ICMAUS) — has been developed in previous research as a generalized model of any system for processing information, either natural or
artificial. It has a range of applications including the analysis and production of natural language, unsupervised inductive learning, recognition of objects and patterns, probabilistic reasoning, and others. The proposals in this article may be seen as an extension and development of
Hebb’s (1949) concept of a ‘cell assembly’.
The article describes how the concept of ‘pattern’ in the ICMAUS framework may be mapped onto a version of the cell
assembly concept and the way in which neural mechanisms may achieve the effect of ‘multiple alignment’ in the ICMAUS framework.
By contrast with the Hebbian concept of a cell assembly, it is proposed here that any one neuron can belong in one assembly and only one assembly. A key feature of present proposals, which is not part of the Hebbian concept, is that any cell assembly may contain ‘references’ or ‘codes’ that serve to identify one or more other cell assemblies. This mechanism allows information to be stored in a compressed form, it provides a robust mechanism by which assemblies may be connected to form hierarchies and other kinds of structure, it means that assemblies can express
abstract concepts, and it provides solutions to some of the other problems associated with cell assemblies.
Drawing on insights derived from the ICMAUS framework, the article also describes how learning may be achieved with neural mechanisms. This concept of learning is significantly different from the Hebbian concept and appears to provide a better account of what we know about human learning
Cell assembly dynamics of sparsely-connected inhibitory networks: a simple model for the collective activity of striatal projection neurons
Striatal projection neurons form a sparsely-connected inhibitory network, and
this arrangement may be essential for the appropriate temporal organization of
behavior. Here we show that a simplified, sparse inhibitory network of
Leaky-Integrate-and-Fire neurons can reproduce some key features of striatal
population activity, as observed in brain slices [Carrillo-Reid et al., J.
Neurophysiology 99 (2008) 1435{1450]. In particular we develop a new metric to
determine the conditions under which sparse inhibitory networks form
anti-correlated cell assemblies with time-varying activity of individual cells.
We found that under these conditions the network displays an input-specific
sequence of cell assembly switching, that effectively discriminates similar
inputs. Our results support the proposal [Ponzi and Wickens, PLoS Comp Biol 9
(2013) e1002954] that GABAergic connections between striatal projection neurons
allow stimulus-selective, temporally-extended sequential activation of cell
assemblies. Furthermore, we help to show how altered intrastriatal GABAergic
signaling may produce aberrant network-level information processing in
disorders such as Parkinson's and Huntington's diseases.Comment: 22 pages, 9 figure
Unsupervised Detection of Cell-Assembly Sequences by Similarity-Based Clustering
Neurons which fire in a fixed temporal pattern (i.e., "cell assemblies") are hypothesized to be a fundamental unit of neural information processing. Several methods are available for the detection of cell assemblies without a time structure. However, the systematic detection of cell assemblies with time structure has been challenging, especially in large datasets, due to the lack of efficient methods for handling the time structure. Here, we show a method to detect a variety of cell-assembly activity patterns, recurring in noisy neural population activities at multiple timescales. The key innovation is the use of a computer science method to comparing strings ("edit similarity"), to group spikes into assemblies. We validated the method using artificial data and experimental data, which were previously recorded from the hippocampus of male Long-Evans rats and the prefrontal cortex of male Brown Norway/Fisher hybrid rats. From the hippocampus, we could simultaneously extract place-cell sequences occurring on different timescales during navigation and awake replay. From the prefrontal cortex, we could discover multiple spike sequences of neurons encoding different segments of a goal-directed task. Unlike conventional event-driven statistical approaches, our method detects cell assemblies without creating event-locked averages. Thus, the method offers a novel analytical tool for deciphering the neural code during arbitrary behavioral and mental processes
The spectro-contextual encoding and retrieval theory of episodic memory.
The spectral fingerprint hypothesis, which posits that different frequencies of oscillations underlie different cognitive operations, provides one account for how interactions between brain regions support perceptual and attentive processes (Siegel etal., 2012). Here, we explore and extend this idea to the domain of human episodic memory encoding and retrieval. Incorporating findings from the synaptic to cognitive levels of organization, we argue that spectrally precise cross-frequency coupling and phase-synchronization promote the formation of hippocampal-neocortical cell assemblies that form the basis for episodic memory. We suggest that both cell assembly firing patterns as well as the global pattern of brain oscillatory activity within hippocampal-neocortical networks represents the contents of a particular memory. Drawing upon the ideas of context reinstatement and multiple trace theory, we argue that memory retrieval is driven by internal and/or external factors which recreate these frequency-specific oscillatory patterns which occur during episodic encoding. These ideas are synthesized into a novel model of episodic memory (the spectro-contextual encoding and retrieval theory, or "SCERT") that provides several testable predictions for future research
Neurosystems: brain rhythms and cognitive processing
Neuronal rhythms are ubiquitous features of brain dynamics, and are highly correlated with cognitive processing. However, the relationship between the physiological mechanisms producing these rhythms and the functions associated with the rhythms remains mysterious. This article investigates the contributions of rhythms to basic cognitive computations (such as filtering signals by coherence and/or frequency) and to major cognitive functions (such as attention and multi-modal coordination). We offer support to the premise that the physiology underlying brain rhythms plays an essential role in how these rhythms facilitate some cognitive operations.098352 - Wellcome Trust; 5R01NS067199 - NINDS NIH HH
Protease Cleavage Leads to Formation of Mature Trimer Interface in HIV-1 Capsid
During retrovirus particle maturation, the assembled Gag polyprotein is cleaved by the viral protease into matrix (MA), capsid (CA), and nucleocapsid (NC) proteins. To form the mature viral capsid, CA rearranges, resulting in a lattice composed of hexameric and pentameric CA units. Recent structural studies of assembled HIV-1 CA revealed several inter-subunit interfaces in the capsid lattice, including a three-fold interhexamer interface that is critical for proper capsid stability. Although a general architecture of immature particles has been provided by cryo-electron tomographic studies, the structural details of the immature particle and the maturation pathway remain unknown. Here, we used cryo-electron microscopy (cryoEM) to determine the structure of tubular assemblies of the HIV-1 CA-SP1-NC protein. Relative to the mature assembled CA structure, we observed a marked conformational difference in the position of the CA-CTD relative to the NTD in the CA-SP1-NC assembly, involving the flexible hinge connecting the two domains. This difference was verified via engineered disulfide crosslinking, revealing that inter-hexamer contacts, in particular those at the pseudo three-fold axis, are altered in the CA-SP1-NC assemblies compared to the CA assemblies. Results from crosslinking analyses of mature and immature HIV-1 particles containing the same Cys substitutions in the Gag protein are consistent with these findings. We further show that cleavage of preassembled CA-SP1-NC by HIV-1 protease in vitro leads to release of SP1 and NC without disassembly of the lattice. Collectively, our results indicate that the proteolytic cleavage of Gag leads to a structural reorganization of the polypeptide and creates the three-fold interhexamer interface, important for the formation of infectious HIV-1 particles. © 2012 Meng et al
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