Long- and short-term memories as distinct states of the brain neuronal network

Abstract

There are two types of memory – short-term and long-term ones. First, the former arises and then the latter one (in the course of the so called consolidation process). Own neuronal networks (engrams) in the brain correspond to each of those memories, and our goal is to understand what is the difference between those networks from viewpoint of their structural properties. It is not about the special biochemical structure of some neurons or synapses arising under the memory consolidation, but about some total topological properties of those brain networks which are associated with the stored pattern. In other words, could the topological reconstruction of the neuronal network promote the memory consolidation and transfer it into the long-term form? The model consideration of that phenomena shows that such a process is quite possible. For that to happen, two conditions have to be met: (i) the neuronal net should be, initially, the scale-free one, and (ii) the memory consolidation should proceed via the building of long-range links that arise at this stage, for instance, by means of new axon-neuron synaptic contacts.