Higher-order Information Storage and Spatially-Ordered Synaptogenesis

小行星9424286 一位年轻的理论家和两位经验丰富的实验学家之间的合作项目，旨在测试学习过程中大脑中发生的事情的新理论。 该理论认为，哺乳动物大脑皮层的学习是由两种不同机制之间的平衡指导的。 一种是神经元之间的连接（称为突触）的持续活动无关变化，这种变化往往会使传入神经元建立连接的神经元位置随机化。 第二个是依赖于活动的过程，在这个过程中，如果同时活跃的传入神经元碰巧靠近在一起，它们的连接就会稳定下来。 这意味着，一组组频繁共同激活的大脑输入聚集在一起，形成相邻的突触，因此，对目标神经元产生更强大的影响。 当传入神经元被人工诱导具有相关活动时，将通过解剖学上观察传入突触在靶神经元上的空间排列来实验性地检验这一理论。 该理论也将通过在计算机上模拟这种类型的生物实验来测试。 这些研究的结果有望对我们思考大脑如何进行计算的方式产生重大影响，这些计算使我们能够学习复杂的模式。

9424286 Desmond This collaborative project between a young theorist and two experienced experimentalist to test a new theory of what happens in the brain during learning.. The theory says that learning in the mammalian cortex is guided by a balance between two distinct mechanisms. One is the continual activity-independent changes in the connections between neurons (called synapses) that tend to randomize the place on a neuron where an incoming afferent neuron establishes its connection. The second is an activity-dependent process in which the connections of afferent neurons that are active at the same time are stabilized if they happen by chance to be close together. This means that groups of frequently co- activated inputs to the brain come together to form neighboring synapses and, therefore, have a more powerful effect on their target neurons. This theory will be tested experimentally by looking anatomically at the spatial arrangement of afferent synapses on target neurons when the afferent neurons are artificially induced to have correlated activity. The theory will also be tested by simulating this type of biological experiment on a computer. The outcome of these studies promises to have a significant impact on the way we think about how the brain does the computations that allow us to learn complicated patterns.