title: Paradox of pattern separation and adult neurogenesis: A dual role for new neurons balancing memory resolution and robustness.
abstract: Hippocampal adult neurogenesis is thought to subserve pattern separation, the process by which similar patterns of neuronal inputs are transformed into distinct neuronal representations, permitting the discrimination of highly similar stimuli in hippocampus-dependent tasks. However, the mechanism by which immature adult-born dentate granule neurons cells (abDGCs) perform this function remains unknown. Two theories of abDGC function, one by which abDGCs modulate and sparsify activity in the dentate gyrus and one by which abDGCs act as autonomous coding units, are generally suggested to be mutually exclusive. This review suggests that these two mechanisms work in tandem to dynamically regulate memory resolution while avoiding memory interference and maintaining memory robustness.
authors.affiliation: Laboratory of Genetics, Salk Institute for Biological Studies, La Jolla, CA 92037, United States.
authors.forename: Stephen T
authors.initials: ST
authors.lastname: Johnston
authors.affiliation: Laboratory of Genetics, Salk Institute for Biological Studies, La Jolla, CA 92037, United States.
authors.forename: Matthew
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Shtrahman
authors.affiliation: Laboratory of Genetics, Salk Institute for Biological Studies, La Jolla, CA 92037, United States.
authors.forename: Sarah
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Parylak
authors.affiliation: Laboratory of Genetics, Salk Institute for Biological Studies, La Jolla, CA 92037, United States.
authors.forename: J Tiago
authors.initials: JT
authors.lastname: Gonçalves
authors.affiliation: Laboratory of Genetics, Salk Institute for Biological Studies, La Jolla, CA 92037, United States. Electronic address: gage@salk.edu.
authors.forename: Fred H
authors.initials: FH
authors.lastname: Gage
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D018891:Dentate Gyrus / Q000502:physiology; D006624:Hippocampus / Q000502:physiology*; D006801:Humans; D008568:Memory / Q000502:physiology*; D008959:Models, Neurological; D055495:Neurogenesis; D009474:Neurons / Q000502:physiology*; D010364:Pattern Recognition, Visual / Q000502:physiology
keywords: Adult neurogenesis; Dentate gyrus; Memory resolution; Memory robustness; Pattern completion; Pattern separation