A model of hippocampal learning during classical conditioning.

During classical conditioning of the rabbit blink reflex, a large fraction of the hippocampal pyramidal neurons are recruited to respond to the conditioned stimulus. The summed response of these neurons comes to match the whole time-amplitude profile of nictitating membrane movement, whereas some individual neurons respond only to part of this profile. A model is described which accounts for these data. The model proposes a learning rule to explain neuron recruitment and uses a tapped delay line to account for the temporal learning properties of the system and the spectrum of individual unit responses.