Article Figures & Data
Figures
- Fig. 1.
A, The hippocampus presumably serves as the “gateway to memory.” New neurons are added at the bottleneck of the neuronal circuitry in response to functional stimulation. The theory presented here is that adult neurogenesis is not involved in increasing memory per se, but in a long-term adjustment of the processing unit “hippocampus” to increased functional needs.B, In contrast, a simplifying computer analogy considers new neurons in the dentate gyrus as a means of increasing working memory (“RAM” in computer terminology). There is no indication that hippocampal neurogenesis is involved in increasing storage memory (“hard disk” in computer terminology). C, A small number of new neurons can only make a big difference if they are strategically used to adapt the existing network. Here, the new neurons are marked in red.
