Hebb and Cell Assemblies

• In 1949, Hebb wrote The Organization of Behavior: A Neuropsychological Theory.
• This proposed both Hebbian learning and the Cell Assembly (CA).
• Hebbian learning, neurons that fire together wire together, conceptually supports the idea of the CA.
• If features travel around in an environment, then the neural representation of those features will tend to excite each other, and their connections will grow stronger.
• When there is enough strength, the neurons can fire after initial stimulus has stopped.
• This reverberating circuit is a CA.
• It forms the basis of concepts like "dog", "cup", and "eat".