Abstract
This review outlines the knowledge gained in the last 50 years concerning the neuroanatomy and neuro-psychophysiology of memory processes in humans. The first part traces the history of the most important findings from ablations of specific cerebral structures and/or stimulations performed on numerous patients using different surgical and neurophysiological methodologies. The interpretation of these findings is discussed. The most recent hypotheses on the neuronal substrates likely to be involved in memory and recall processes are then presented. In particular the concept of parallel distributed non-linear multicolumnar cortical networks is described as well as the recent hypothesis concerning the chaotic oscillatory properties of these complex non-linear neuronal systems which are said to behave as chaotic deterministic attractors.
Sommario
Questa rivista sintetica riassume oltre ai dati di più recente acquisizione, i principali risultati degli ultimi 50 anni in tema di studi di neuroanatomia e neuro-psicofisiologia dei processi mnemonici nell'uomo.
Nella prima parte vengono brevemente descritti e discussi i principali risultati ottenuti con ablazioni e/o stimolazioni di specifiche formazioni cerebrali, in prevalenza corticali, in numerosi pazienti utilizzando differenti metodologie chirurgiche e neurofisiologiche.
Segue una sintesi delle più recenti ipotesi sulle caratteristiche anatomofunzionali dei substrati neuronali verosimilmente coinvolti nei differenti processi di fissazione e rievocazione dei cosiddetti engrammi. In particolare vengono illustrati il concetto di rete neuronale multicolonnare essenzialmente corticale distribuita in parallelo non stazionaria ed a dinamica non lineare e la recente ipotesi sulle proprietà oscillatorie caotiche di questi complessi sistemi neuronali non lineari che si comportano come attrattori caotici deterministici.
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Lecture to the XI Up-dating Course of the Italian Neurological Society, 19–23 Oct. 1992.
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Zappoli, R. Cortico-cortical connections, non-lnear multicolumnar parallel distributed networks and memory processes in humans. A review. Ital J Neuro Sci 14, 287–292 (1993). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02339294
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02339294