History’s Top Brain Computation Insights: Day 13

13) Larger cortical space is correlated with greater representational resolution; memories are stored in cortex (Penfield – 1957) Prior to performing surgery, Wilder Penfield electrically stimulated epileptic patients' brains while they were awake. He found the motor and somatosensory strips along the central sulcus, just as was found in dogs by Fitsch & Hitzig (see …

History’s Top Brain Computation Insights: Day 12

12) Hippocampus is necessary for episodic memory formation (Milner – 1953) Patient H.M. had terrible epilepsy originating in the medial temporal lobes. His neurosurgeon decided to take out the source of the epilepsy: the hippocampus. Surprisingly, after the operation H.M. could no longer form new long-term memories. He could remember things for short time periods …

History’s Top Brain Computation Insights: Day 10

10) The Hebbian learning rule: 'Neurons that fire together wire together' [plus corollaries] (Hebb – 1949) D. O. Hebb's most famous idea, that neurons with correlated activity increase their synaptic connection strength, was based on the more general concept of association of correlated ideas by philosopher David Hume (1739) and others. Hebb expanded on this …