Associative Memory in a Simple Model of Oscillating Cortex

A generic model of oscillating cortex, which assumes "minimal" coupling justified by known anatomy, is shown to function as an associative memory,using previously developed theory. The network has explicit excitatory neurons with local inhibitory interneuron feedback that forms a set of nonlinear oscillators coupled only by long range excitatofy connections. Using a local Hebb-like learning rule for primary and higher order synapses at the ends of the long range connections, the system learns to store the kinds of oscillation amplitudepatterns observed in olfactory and visual cortex. This rule is derived from a more general "projection algorithm" for recurrent analog networks, that analytically guarantees content addressable memory storage of continuous periodic sequences - capacity: N/2 Fourier components for an N node network - no "spurious" attractors. 1 Introduction This is a sketch of recent results stemming from work which is discussed completely in [1, 2, 3]. Patterns of 40 to 80 hz oscillation have been observed in the large scale activity of olfactory cortex [4] and visual neocortex [5], and shown to predict the olfactory and visual pattern recognition responses of a trained animal.