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Attractor networks
Author(s) -
Rolls Edmund T.
Publication year - 2009
Publication title -
wiley interdisciplinary reviews: cognitive science
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.526
H-Index - 49
eISSN - 1939-5086
pISSN - 1939-5078
DOI - 10.1002/wcs.1
Subject(s) - attractor , computer science , mathematics , mathematical analysis
An attractor network is a network of neurons with excitatory interconnections that can settle into a stable pattern of firing. This article shows how attractor networks in the cerebral cortex are important for long‐term memory, short‐term memory, attention, and decision making. The article then shows how the random firing of neurons can influence the stability of these networks by introducing stochastic noise, and how these effects are involved in probabilistic decision making, and implicated in some disorders of cortical function such as poor short‐term memory and attention, schizophrenia, and obsessive‐compulsive disorder. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. This article is categorized under: Computer Science > Neural Networks