Cell Assemblies

• These neurons do a lot of things, but one of the things they do is represent concepts.
• So, we all have a concept for dog and that concept is represented by a Cell Assembly (CA from Hebb in 1949).
• A CA is a set of neurons that tend to have high connection strength.
• When a concept is sensed (via e.g. seeing, smelling, touching or reading about) the neurons that represent the concept begin to fire.
• The neurons in the CA have large connections, so they may cause other neurons in the CA to fire, and the CA may persist.
• The persistent firing of a CA is a short-term memory.
• The formation of a CA is a long-term memory.