Center for Molecular and Behavioral Neuroscience, Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, 197 University Avenue, Newark, NJ 07102, USA.
Neuron. 2010 Nov 4;68(3):362-85. doi: 10.1016/j.neuron.2010.09.023.
A widely discussed hypothesis in neuroscience is that transiently active ensembles of neurons, known as "cell assemblies," underlie numerous operations of the brain, from encoding memories to reasoning. However, the mechanisms responsible for the formation and disbanding of cell assemblies and temporal evolution of cell assembly sequences are not well understood. I introduce and review three interconnected topics, which could facilitate progress in defining cell assemblies, identifying their neuronal organization, and revealing causal relationships between assembly organization and behavior. First, I hypothesize that cell assemblies are best understood in light of their output product, as detected by "reader-actuator" mechanisms. Second, I suggest that the hierarchical organization of cell assemblies may be regarded as a neural syntax. Third, constituents of the neural syntax are linked together by dynamically changing constellations of synaptic weights ("synapsembles"). The existing support for this tripartite framework is reviewed and strategies for experimental testing of its predictions are discussed.
在神经科学中，有一个广为讨论的假说，即神经元的短暂活跃集合，被称为“细胞集合”，是大脑从编码记忆到推理等众多运作的基础。然而，对于细胞集合的形成和解散机制以及细胞集合序列的时间演变，人们还不太了解。我介绍并回顾了三个相互关联的主题，这可能有助于定义细胞集合、识别其神经元组织以及揭示集合组织与行为之间的因果关系。首先，我假设细胞集合最好从其输出产物的角度来理解，这些产物是通过“读写器-执行器”机制检测到的。其次，我认为细胞集合的层次组织可以被视为神经语法。第三，通过动态变化的突触权重集合（“突触集合”）将神经语法的组成部分连接在一起。综述了现有对这三分框架的支持，并讨论了对其预测进行实验检验的策略。
