Nat Neurosci: Computer models reveal how the brain manages short-term memory

Oct 20, 2020 // --- Working memory is important to our daily lives, and this short-term memory recall is key to how people solve problems or perform tasks.
, however, how the brain manages memory has always been a mystery.
, Salk scientists have developed a new computational model that shows how the brain uses certain types of neurons to maintain information in the short term.
their findings, published in nature Neuroscience on December 7, 2020, could help shed light on why working memory is impaired by a variety of neuropsychiasts, including schizophrenia, and normal aging.
"Most studies of working memory have focused on excitable neurons in the cortical layer, which are numerous and widely connected, and are fundamentally different from inhibitory neurons," said Terrence Sejnowski, head and senior author of Salk's Computational Neurobiology Laboratory at www.pixabay.com.
paper, Salk and Dr. Sejnowski and Robert Kim of the University of California, San Diego, developed computer models of the pre-pre-cortical cortical layer, an area known for management memory.
researchers used learning algorithms to teach their models to test the working memory of primates - the animals had to determine whether the patterns on the screen with colored squares matched those seen a few seconds earlier.
Sejnowski and Kim analyzed how their models were able to perform this task with high precision and then compared it to existing data on brain activity patterns seen by monkeys when they performed their tasks.
in both tests, the real and simulated neurons involved in working memory ran slower than other neurons.
Kim and Sejnowski found that good working memory requires both long-term neurons and inhibitory neurons that inhibit brain activity.
when they changed the strength of the connections between these inhibitory neurons in the model, the researchers were able to change the performance of the model in the working memory test and the time scale of the associated neurons.
new findings point to the importance of inhibitory neurons and could spark future research into the role of these cells in working memory, the researchers said.
they could also provide information for studies of the struggles of people with neuropsychiasts such as schizophrenia and autism in their working memory.
(Bioon.com) Source: Computational model reveals how the brain managements short-term memories Original source: Robert Kim et al, Strong resourcing signaling underlies stable temporal dynamics and working memory in spiking neural networks, Nature Neuroscience (2020). DOI: 10.1038/s41593-020-00753-w。