Cluster Reverberation: a mechanism for robust short-term memory without synaptic learning

Short -term memory cannot in general be explained the way long-term memory can -- as a gradual modification of synaptic conductances -- since it takes place too quickly. Theories based on some form of cellular bistability, however, do not seem to be able to account for the fact that noisy neurons can collectively store information in a robust manner. We show how a sufficiently clustered network of simple model neurons can be instantly induced into metastable states capable of retaining information for a short time. Cluster Reverberation, as we call it, could constitute a viable mechanism available to the brain for robust short-term memory with no need of synaptic learning. Relevant phenomena described by neurobiology and psychology, such as power-law statistics of forgetting avalanches, emerge naturally from this mechanism.

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