Neuronal assemblies

The concept of neuronal assembly as it has appeared in selected portions of the literature is examined. The context is experimental access to real neuronal assemblies in working brains, as made possible by recent technological progress. One current measure of assembly organization is based on the correlation of firing among neurons; recent observations show that such correlations can vary rapidly. It is shown that the dynamic firing correlation can be caused either by dynamic changes in neuronal connection strengths or, alternatively, by the effects of an unobserved (large) pool of other neurons. The static connectivity within the pool appears to be important in determining these effects.