An inhibitory plasticity mechanism for world structure inference by hippocampal replay

Summary Memory consolidation assimilates recent experiences into long-term memory. This process requires the replay of learned sequences, though the content of these sequences remains controversial. Recent work has shown that the statistics of replay deviate from those of experience: stimuli which are experientially salient may be either selected or suppressed. We find that this phenomenon can be explained parsimoniously and biologically plausibly by a Hebbian spike time-dependent plasticity rule at inhibitory synapses. Using spiking networks at three levels of abstraction–leaky integrate-and-fire, biophysically detailed, and abstract binary–we show that this rule enables efficient inference of a model of the structure of the world. We present analytical results that these replayed sequences converge to ground truth under a mathematical model of replay. Finally, we make specific predictions about the consequences of intact and perturbed inhibitory dynamics for network dynamics and cognition. Our work outlines a potential direct link between the synaptic and cognitive levels of memory consolidation, with implications for both normal learning and neurological disease.