Selective Neurone Death as a Possible Memory Mechanism

@article{Dawkins1971SelectiveND,
  title={Selective Neurone Death as a Possible Memory Mechanism},
  author={Richard Dawkins},
  journal={Nature},
  year={1971},
  volume={229},
  pages={118-119}
}
  • R. Dawkins
  • Published 8 January 1971
  • Biology, Psychology
  • Nature
IT is a widely deplored fact that every day many thousands of our brain cells die and, unlike other types of cell, are never replaced1,2. I suggest that this may not be a purely destructive process, as is normally supposed, but may represent a mechanism for one of the brain's most constructive functions, memory or information storage. 
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Not only for rodents, but in man too, the more recent studies based on larger material, fail to demonstrate loss of neurones with advancing age, and Dawkins's model of memory helps to bring to light the narrow base supporting neurone loss as an uncontestable axiom.
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Three increasingly sophisticated mechanisms are presented to demonstrate how topographic map formation coupled with Spike-Time Dependent Plasticity (STDP) can copy neuronal topology motifs.
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Rats given experience in the enriched condition (EC) showed, in comparison to littermates in the impoverished condition (1C), synapses that averaged 52% greater in length but that were only 67% as numerous as in IC, so the EC size distribution could not have been derived simply by loss of small synapses from the IC distribution.
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