Transient cell assembly networks encode persistent spatial memories

TL;DR

This paper presents a computational model showing how transient hippocampal cell assemblies can encode and maintain stable spatial memories despite rapid changes in synaptic connections, using algebraic topology methods.

Contribution

It introduces a novel model demonstrating the emergence of persistent spatial representations from transient neural assemblies.

Findings

Transient cell assemblies can encode stable spatial maps.

Algebraic topology methods reveal robustness of the cognitive map.

The model explains how stable memories persist despite synaptic plasticity.

Abstract

While cognitive representations of an environment can last for days and even months, the synaptic architecture of the neuronal networks that underlie these representations constantly changes due to various forms of synaptic and structural plasticity at a much faster timescale. This raises an immediate question: how can a transient network maintain a stable representation of space? In the following, we propose a computational model for describing emergence of the hippocampal cognitive map in a network of transient place cell assemblies and demonstrate, using methods of algebraic topology, that such a network can maintain a robust map of the environment.