Toward a Representational Hypothesis of the Role of Hippocampal Synaptic Plasticity in Spatial and Other Forms of Learning
This extract was created in the absence of an abstract.
Excerpt
One reason for the current interest in the neural mechanisms of activity-dependent synaptic plasticity, particularly those involved in hippocampal long-term potentiation (LTP), is the idea that these same mechanisms may overlap with those actually used by the nervous system in certain kinds of learning. Several different theoretical and experimental approaches have been taken to investigate this possibility (Laroche and Bloch 1982; McNaughton 1983; Lynch 1986; Teyler and Discenna 1986; Barnes 1988; Berger and Sclabassi 1988; Morris et al. 1990a; Singer 1990), but this paper focuses on a hitherto neglected aspect of the problem: the interface between the properties and mechanisms of LTP, on the one hand, and recent neuropsychological theories about the organization of memory, on the other. Aspects of a “representational” hypothesis concerning the role LTP could play in storing information about the relationship between events are then outlined and evaluated against available evidence.
