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Nature Neuroscience 11, 993–994 (1 September 2008) | doi:10.1038/nn0908-993

Rhythms of memory

Tania L Roth & J David Sweatt

Humans have an amazing capacity for storing learned information with high fidelity for long periods of time, but how are long-term memories stabilized and rendered permanent? In the earliest days of memory studies, 'reverberating circuit' models posited that continual, ongoing feedback loops of actively firing neurons maintained memory. Over time, these models were largely discarded for explaining long-term memory, as a result of the stability of long-term memory in the face of things such as deep general anesthesia, which globally diminishes CNS firing activity.