Evidence map›Paper›PMID 39982994›Full record

ArticleScience advances2025

A non-Hebbian code for episodic memory.

Rich Pang, Stefano Recanatesi

Abstract read
In one paragraph

Article in Science advances, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 2 papers.

0numbers the graph read from it
0cells of the map it votes in
2citing papers in PubMed
–field-weighted citation impact
1 · What the graph read from it

What it found

Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.

The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.

2 · The registry

The trial behind it

Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.

Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.

3 · Its place in the literature

Who cites it

2 citing papers in PubMed.

  1. Article
  2. Article
4 · The record

Corrections and comments

PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.

5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

2 authors.

Rich PangCenter for the Physics of Biological Function, Princeton, NJ and New York, NY, USA.ORCID 0000-0002-2644-6110
Stefano RecanatesiAllen Institute for Neural Dynamics, Seattle, WA, USA.ORCID 0000-0002-3576-9261

Funding

No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.

6 · The paper itself

Abstract

Hebbian plasticity has long dominated neurobiological models of memory formation. Yet, plasticity rules operating on one-shot episodic memory timescales rarely depend on both pre- and postsynaptic spiking, challenging Hebbian theory in this crucial regime. Here, we present an episodic memory model governed by a simpler rule depending only on presynaptic activity. We show that this rule, capitalizing on high-dimensional neural activity with restricted transitions, naturally stores episodes as paths through complex state spaces like those underlying a world model. The resulting memory traces, which we term path vectors, are highly expressive and decodable with an odor-tracking algorithm. We show that path vectors are robust alternatives to Hebbian traces, support one-shot sequential and associative recall, along with policy learning, and shed light on specific hippocampal plasticity rules. Thus, non-Hebbian plasticity is sufficient for flexible memory and learning and well-suited to encode episodes and policies as paths through a world model.

Indexed as

Memory, EpisodicModels, NeurologicalNeuronal PlasticityAlgorithmsAnimalsHippocampusHumansLearning

Identifiers

PMID39982994
PMCPMC11844740

What OpenQuestion holds

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LicenceCC BY-NC
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Registered trials

None linked

Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.