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A review of cell assemblies

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Abstract

Since the cell assembly (CA) was hypothesised, it has gained substantial support and is believed to be the neural basis of psychological concepts. A CA is a relatively small set of connected neurons, that through neural firing can sustain activation without stimulus from outside the CA, and is formed by learning. Extensive evidence from multiple single unit recording and other techniques provides support for the existence of CAs that have these properties, and that their neurons also spike with some degree of synchrony. Since the evidence is so broad and deep, the review concludes that CAs are all but certain. A model of CAs is introduced that is informal, but is broad enough to include, e.g. synfire chains, without including, e.g. holographic reduced representation. CAs are found in most cortical areas and in some sub-cortical areas, they are involved in psychological tasks including categorisation, short-term memory and long-term memory, and are central to other tasks including working memory. There is currently insufficient evidence to conclude that CAs are the neural basis of all concepts. A range of models have been used to simulate CA behaviour including associative memory and more process- oriented tasks such as natural language parsing. Questions involving CAs, e.g. memory persistence, CAs’ complex interactions with brain waves and learning, remain unanswered. CA research involves a wide range of disciplines including biology and psychology, and this paper reviews literature directly related to the CA, providing a basis of discussion for this interdisciplinary community on this important topic. Hopefully, this discussion will lead to more formal and accurate models of CAs that are better linked to neuropsychological data.

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Notes

  1. An atomic CA is not composed of other CAs.

  2. Statistical mechanics can be used to describe CAs, with a set of firing neurons being an attractor basin. The Hopfield model (Hopfield 1982 and see Sect. 5.1.3) is a particularly good example of attractor basins with a particular set of neurons firing and then continuing to fire in response to a particular input. The firing pattern moves from the initial input state, down an energy slope to a new firing state, which has attracted the activity.

  3. If a language is Turing complete, anything that can be programmed can be programmed in it. So, to some degree, CAs are equivalent to Java.

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Acknowledgments

This work was supported by EPSRC Grant EP/D059720. Thanks to Ray Adams, Eric Chown, Dan Diaper, Kailash Nadh and Pieter DeVries for comments on this paper, and Mark Dubin for the use of his Brodmann figures.

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    Christian R. Huyck & Peter J. Passmore

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Huyck, C.R., Passmore, P.J. A review of cell assemblies. Biol Cybern 107, 263–288 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00422-013-0555-5

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