Abstract
BIOLOGICAL theories of memory formation have relied heavily on the idea that the use of a pathway in the brain can bring about changes that facilitate transmission along the same pathway in the future1. The converse, that memory consists of the elimination of alternative routes, may seem at first less appealing, but the idea of learning as a suppression of unwanted responses is familiar at the behavioural level2. This report is about a theory of memory based on the suppression or weakening of synaptic transmission in unused pathways. It draws on recent experiments on the regeneration of neurornuseular synapses in fish for evidence that an appropriate mechanism may exist.
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MARK, R. Chemospecific Synaptic Repression as a Possible Memory Store. Nature 225, 178–179 (1970). https://doi.org/10.1038/225178b0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/225178b0
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