Time scales of memory, learning, and plasticity

Tetzlaff, Kolodziejski, Markelic, Wörgötter · Biological Cybernetics · 2012 · neuroscience · 10.1007/s00422-012-0529-z · record Tetzlaff2012-time-scales-of-memory-learning-and-plasticit
tag layer · index · concepts · authors · עברית
Where this record's text came from. faceted 2026-08 by reading the locally held text (pdftext); every evidence string verified as an exact substring of that text before merging. This is a 'prospect' article, so 'review' is the closest method value; it contains no new data and its claim is a proposed organising framework rather than an empirical result. The 'contradicts' relation to Hebb (1949) is weaker than the label suggests - the paper says the link is 'still under debate' rather than refuting it - and I set replication status to 'contested' for the same reason, since the paper explicitly reports contradictory experimental evidence on the LTP-learning link (Mayford et al. 1996 versus Zamanillo 1999). Table 1's mathematical model catalogue is a substantive part of the contribution that no facet captures. 2026-08-14 and 2026-08-15 schema-0.3 passes: every quote verified as an exact substring of the staged text and anchored at merge time; concept terms verified present; every edge endpoint an existing node.
This record’s own method is review, and the tags below follow from that. A review’s findings, quantities and statistics are things stated IN this paper, and some of them report results obtained elsewhere. 1 tag on this page names the author the result belongs to. Measured across every review in this corpus, 81% of a review’s tags carry no citation at all — most of them are the review speaking. The corpus does not adjudicate the rest: read an unmarked tag as a claim this paper makes, not necessarily one it made first.
How to read this page. The article itself is not reproduced here — this paper is not cleared for redistribution, so what follows is the tag layer alone. The evidence sentences are withheld with the article. The table at the foot lists every tag the record carries; each row names the facet it belongs to, and the whose words column says whether the tag records the paper's own wording or the tagger's sentence about the paper. Every tag links to each other paper in the corpus carrying it. The machine-readable edition of the same thing is the TEI file beside this one, where the tags live in standOff, and the article is at its publisher via the link below. When we have changed our mind. Some entries in the table begin with a word in capitals and the reason for it. EVIDENCE CORRECTED — the finding still stands, but we had quoted the wrong sentence from the paper, and the quotation has been replaced with the right one. RETRACTED — the entry itself was wrong; it stays on the page, marked, with the reason, rather than being deleted. WITHDRAWN AND REPLACED — the entry was wrong, and a corrected version of it appears in the entries below. Each mark carries its own reason, in brackets, because the reasons differ from one entry to the next. An entry we have WITHDRAWN is removed from this page and kept in the record, with its reason. A line reading Audit and a date is a later re-reading of the entry against its whole sentence: DOUBTFUL means it was kept, and the reason says what is loose about it. Quotation marks inside the tagger's sentence. Where a tag is the tagger's own sentence, a phrase in quotation marks inside it is borrowed from the paper — the tagger's wording around it is not. The paper's own sentence is the evidence quote for that row; on this page it is withheld with the article, and the article is at its publisher. Nothing inside quotation marks anywhere on this page is ours: if it is quoted, it is the paper's. Whose words a concept carries. A concept entry records a term the paper itself uses, so the term, the sense given for it, and its evidence are the paper's own words, quoted where the paper fixes them. This is the opposite of a sense entry in the tag table, which is the tagger's sentence about how the paper uses a term. Where a concept entry could not be grounded in the paper's words, the entry says so on its own row.
Other fields define these differently the same word, defined another way in another discipline
working memory 4 fields · short-term memory 2 fields

Tags on this paper

Every tag the record carries, each linking to every other paper in the corpus that carries it. A tag appears here whether or not its words occur in the article — the spans below are only the ones a sentence in this paper licenses. Of the 5 concept tags on this paper, all 5 are grounded in a quoted sentence.
working memory short-term memory long-term memory eligibility traces time scale Forgetting on finite, graded storage times acts as an implicit compression algorithm, holding down both the capacity needed and the time to retrieve an item New memories overwrite and interfere with old ones, which lowers the network's capacity demand but destroys important items - the cost that multiple time scales exist to avoid Hebbian potentiation feeds back on itself - a strengthened synapse drives the postsynaptic neuron harder, which strengthens it further - producing runaway weight growth unless a counteracting mechanism is present An organism evolves a given memory time scale only if its lifespan and environment exert evolutionary pressure for correlations at that scale Spike-triggered calcium influx into the presynaptic terminal raises release probability (facilitation) while use depletes the vesicle pool (depression), giving synapses a seconds-long memory chunking detectability retrograde alteration structural plasticity intrinsic plasticity synaptic tagging reservoir computing synaptic scaling review

Legend

relation to other workclaim_relationshow this paper stands to another: agrees, contradicts, extends, qualifies
claim typeclaim_typethe shape of the claim: existence, mechanism, method, critique, prediction, null
concept edgeconcept_edgesan asserted relation between two concepts, with the sentence asserting it
conceptconceptsan idea the paper works with, quoted where the paper uses it
content tagcontent_tagsa finding, definition, quantity, statistic or variable named in the paper
limitationlimitationswhat the paper says its evidence cannot support
mechanismmechanismshow the reported effect is said to come about
methodmethodhow the paper produced its evidence
phenomenonphenomenonthe effect or regularity under study
sensesensesa distinct use of a term, quoted where the paper fixes it
unrecordable relationunhoused_relationsa relation the paper asserts that this vocabulary cannot express, with the reason

The paper

The full text is not reproduced here. This article is not cleared for redistribution, so the page carries the tag layer only. Its evidence sentences are withheld; the grounding status remains with each tag, and the article itself is at https://doi.org/10.1007/s00422-012-0529-z. The reading view exists for the papers whose licence permits it.

Every tag on this page

claim_relations 2 · claim_type 1 · concept_edges 1 · concepts 5 · content_tags 28 · limitations 6 · mechanisms 5 · method 1 · phenomenon 1 · senses 3 · unhoused_relations 1

Relations on this page carry a quotation for the claim. Where a relation was separately evidenced — and so tested against the vocabulary for its type — the row says so; none of 1 relation here carry that mark. The rest are the tagger’s reading of the sentence quoted beside them.

This record holds no controls. A layer is empty when the tagger recorded nothing in it — which is not the same as the paper having nothing to record.

facettagfieldconf.whose words
claim_typemechanism
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claim_typethe paper's words
phenomenontime scales of memory, learning, and synaptic plasticity
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phenomenonthe paper's words
methodreview
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also in: review
methodthe paper's words
mechanismsmechanisms
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mechanisms[0]the tagger's words
mechanismsmechanisms
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mechanisms[1]the tagger's words
mechanismsmechanisms
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mechanisms[2]the tagger's words
mechanismsmechanisms
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mechanisms[3]the tagger's words
mechanismsmechanisms
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mechanisms[4]the tagger's words
limitationsThe review is selective rather than exhaustive; only key findings are discussed for each link.
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what this limits: the review's coverage: TO AVOID THIS, ONLY KEY FINDINGS ARE DISCUSSED
limitations[0]the tagger's words
limitationsThe mapping from physiological mechanism to behaviour is not established, so the links presented are possibilities rather than established correspondences.
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what this limits: every mechanism-to-behaviour link the review draws: BECAUSE IT IS NOT CLEAR WHICH MECHANISM IS RESPONSIBLE FOR WHICH BEHAVIOR, WE DISCUSSED POSSIBLE LINKS
limitations[1]the tagger's words
limitationsOnly links with existing experimental or modelling support are treated; missing links are flagged as open questions rather than covered.
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what this limits: the set of links the review treats at all: UP TO THIS POINT WE HAVE ONLY DISCUSSED LINKS FOR WHICH THERE IS ALREADY EXPERIMENTAL SUPPORT OR THEORETICAL MODELING
limitations[2]the tagger's words
limitationsThe review's two neighbouring memory categories are given non-overlapping time ranges.
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what this limits: any use of 'time scale' across these memory terms: working memory is given a range of milliseconds to minutes and short-term memory one of minutes to days, so the expression names different spans for adjacent categories
limitations[3]1.0the tagger's words
limitationsThe ordering between the two categories is stated to be unresolved and posed as a question.
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what this limits: any account of memory transfer drawn from this review: the interaction between short- and long-term memory is said to remain unclear, and whether an item must pass through short-term memory first is asked rather than answered
limitations[4]1.0the tagger's words
limitationsA construct used throughout the learning-algorithm literature has no established physiology for its longer form.
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what this limits: any physiological reading of eligibility traces: they are used in many learning-algorithm approaches to bridge time gaps, and the authors state the physiological basis of longer traces is unclear
limitations[5]1.0the tagger's words
conceptsworking memory
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concepts[0]the paper's words
conceptsshort-term memory
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concepts[1]the paper's words
conceptslong-term memory
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concepts[2]the paper's words
conceptseligibility traces
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concepts[3]the paper's words
conceptstime scale
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also in: time scale
concepts[4]the paper's words
unhoused_relationsconsolidation → retrieval
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THE TWO CANNOT BE SEPARATED IN THIS STUDY - the DESIGN form of the negative relation / No edge type can express it: all eight assert that a relation HOLDS. Recorded here because a confounding statement BOUNDS WHAT THE PAPER'S OWN RESULTS CAN MEAN, and it lives in a methods paragraph where nothing downstream will find it. A memory deficit cannot be attributed to either of the two processes the field distinguishes - so the distinction survives in the vocabulary while being unusable on the data.
unhoused_relations[0]the tagger's words
sensesa time scale - THREE DIFFERENT SPANS UNDER ONE EXPRESSION: working memory milliseconds to minutes, short-term memory minutes to days, long-term memory up to what the authors put in scare quotes as 'infinity'; the phrase that organises the whole review denotes a different quantity in each of its three sections
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senses[0]1.0the tagger's words
senseslong-term memory's upper bound - IN THE AUTHORS' OWN SCARE QUOTES: given as up to 'infinity', with the immediate qualification that it is still under debate how items can be stored for such a long time, so the widest value in the review is the one marked as least settled
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senses[1]1.0the tagger's words
sensesan eligibility trace - A MODELLING DEVICE WITHOUT ITS PHYSIOLOGY: named in 1943 and used in many learning-algorithm approaches to bridge time gaps, while the physiological basis of the longer traces is stated to be unclear, so the algorithms assume a mechanism the review declines to underwrite
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senses[2]1.0the tagger's words
claim_relationsbuilds-on → Martin et al. (2000) four criteria for relating plasticity to learning and memory
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claim_relations[0]the tagger's words
claim_relationscontradicts → Hebb (1949) proposed link between long-term memory and long-term plasticity
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claim_relations[1]the tagger's words
concept_edgesworking memory —contrasted-with→ short-term memory
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differs in: the span each covers: milliseconds to minutes, versus minutes to days · strength of the relation: 1
concept_edges[0]the tagger's words
content_tagsWorking memory spans milliseconds to minutes, while short-term memory stores items over minutes to days.
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content_tags.findings[0]the tagger's words
content_tagsHaving different storage time scales could avoid the deletion of important information.
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content_tags.findings[1]the tagger's words
content_tagsRobot experiments show that when different time scales interact, more complex behaviour can be obtained.
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content_tags.findings[2]the tagger's words
content_tagsCaenorhabditis elegans shows synaptic plasticity but no experience-based structural plasticity.
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WHOSE RESULT THIS IS: Varshney et al. 2011), long time scale] was found - THE EVIDENCE FOR THIS ROW ATTRIBUTES THE WORK TO SOMEBODY ELSE. The cited name is the subject of a result verb and the sentence carries no first-person marker, so the finding, quantity or definition is the CITED author's rather than this record's. The claim is true and the quote is verbatim - what is wrong is whose result the corpus says it is. Nothing edited, nothing withdrawn: the row is marked so a page can name the source. Where the record is a commentary or review, its claim relations layer usually already names the paper being discussed - the record knows at one layer and forgets at another.
content_tags.findings[3]the tagger's words
content_tagsOf the proposed memory-physiology links, working memory-to-activity and long-term-memory-to-structural-plasticity have experimental support, whereas the classic long-term-memory-to-long-term-plasticity link is still disputed.
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content_tags.findings[4]the tagger's words
content_tagsSo far, mimicry cannot be experimentally induced.
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content_tags.findings[5]the tagger's words
content_tagsRats in enriched environments build significantly more dendritic spines than controls.
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content_tags.findings[6]the tagger's words
content_tagsAdding synaptic scaling with a quadratic weight dependence to a generic plasticity rule can be shown mathematically to stabilise weight development.
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content_tags.findings[7]the tagger's words
content_tagsStructural plasticity is modelled only computationally because no analytical models of network topology change exist yet.
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content_tags.findings[8]the tagger's words
content_tagsWhether the exact human forgetting curve is exponential or a power law remains unsettled.
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content_tags.findings[9]the tagger's words
content_tagsworking memory
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content_tags.definitions[0]the tagger's words
content_tagslong-term memory
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content_tags.definitions[1]the tagger's words
content_tagschunking
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also in: chunking
content_tags.definitions[2]the tagger's words
content_tagsdetectability
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also in: detectability
content_tags.definitions[3]the tagger's words
content_tagsretrograde alteration
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content_tags.definitions[4]the tagger's words
content_tagsstructural plasticity
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content_tags.definitions[5]the tagger's words
content_tagseligibility traces
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content_tags.definitions[6]the tagger's words
content_tagsintrinsic plasticity
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content_tags.definitions[7]the tagger's words
content_tagssynaptic tagging
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content_tags.definitions[8]the tagger's words
content_tagsreservoir computing
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content_tags.definitions[9]the tagger's words
content_tagssynaptic scaling
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content_tags.definitions[10]the tagger's words
content_tagsabout 10 days — how quickly the nervous system's storage capacity would be exhausted if every bit of input were stored
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content_tags.quantities[0]the tagger's words
content_tagsfour and seven — the number of items working memory can hold
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content_tags.quantities[1]the tagger's words
content_tagstens of milliseconds — the time scale of the postsynaptic potential, the shortest memory-like physiological trace
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content_tags.quantities[2]the tagger's words
content_tagsμ = 0.01 corresponds to 100 ms — how the alpha-function time-scale parameter maps onto the filter's temporal duration
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content_tags.quantities[3]the tagger's words
content_tagsfour — the number of criteria Martin et al. proposed for establishing that plasticity underlies learning and memory (detectability, mimicry, anterograde and retrograde alteration)
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content_tags.quantities[4]the tagger's words
content_tagsmilliseconds to seconds — the time scale of short-term plasticity
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content_tags.quantities[5]the tagger's words
content_tagshours to several days — the time scale on which structural plasticity rewires the network
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content_tags.quantities[6]the tagger's words

Interpretive choices

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