The Quest for the Associative Device for Hebbian‐Like LTP—The Accidental Participant
Bengt Gustafsson · 2026
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Description
Bengt Gustafsson recounts, in first person, how he and Holger Wigström worked out the device behind Hebbian long-term potentiation in 1985. Their plan dealt with two puzzles of this memory related change at synapses: why change stays with the inputs that fired, and why paired firing is needed. They proposed that calcium entering through NMDA receptor channels, sitting beside plain glutamate receptors, triggers the change. The channels open with voltage, which would explain why paired activity is required.
The account traces the experiments behind the idea. Blocking inhibition unleashed potentiation, and a branch event in the cell matched success. Pairing single synaptic responses with charge pulses shot into the cell later proved the plan. The 2026 essay is a first hand history of a core idea in brain science, told by a participant who calls himself accidental.
Catalog record
| CREATOR | Bengt Gustafsson |
|---|---|
| YEAR | 2026 |
| COLLECTION | PAPERS |
| FORMAT | TXT |
| FILE SIZE | 32 KB |
| VERSION | 1.0 |
| LICENSE | CC BY 4.0 |
| RIGHTS | CC BY |
| SOURCE | Europe PMC |