Brain Science Center, Institute of Basic Medical Sciences, Beijing 100850, China; Department of Neurobiology, Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot 76100, Israel; Department of Neuroscience, Columbia University, New York, NY 10032, USA.
Department of Neurobiology, Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot 76100, Israel.
Neuron. 2017 Jan 18;93(2):323-330. doi: 10.1016/j.neuron.2016.12.004. Epub 2016 Dec 29.
Psychological studies indicate that human ability to keep information in readily accessible working memory is limited to four items for most people. This extremely low capacity severely limits execution of many cognitive tasks, but its neuronal underpinnings remain unclear. Here we show that in the framework of synaptic theory of working memory, capacity can be analytically estimated to scale with characteristic time of short-term synaptic depression relative to synaptic current time constant. The number of items in working memory can be regulated by external excitation, enabling the system to be tuned to the desired load and to clear the working memory of currently held items to make room for new ones.
心理学研究表明，人类在工作记忆中存储信息的能力对于大多数人来说，最多只能容纳四个项目。这种极低的容量严重限制了许多认知任务的执行，但它的神经基础仍然不清楚。在这里，我们表明，在工作记忆的突触理论框架内，可以对容量进行分析性估计，以与短期突触抑制相对于突触电流时间常数的特征时间相关。工作记忆中的项目数量可以通过外部激励来调节，使系统能够适应所需的负载，并清除当前持有的项目的工作记忆，为新的项目腾出空间。
