Theories and models of working memory (WM) were at least since the mid-1990s dominated by the persistent activity hypothesis. The past decade has seen rising concerns about the shortcomings of sustained activity as the mechanism for short-term maintenance of WM information in the light of accumulating experimental evidence for so-called activity-silent WM and the fundamental difficulty in explaining robust multi-item WM. In consequence, alternative theories are now explored mostly in the direction of fast synaptic plasticity as the underlying mechanism.The question of non-Hebbian vs Hebbian synaptic plasticity emerges naturally in this context. In this review we focus on fast Hebbian plasticity and trace the origins of WM theories and models building on this form of associative learning.

翻译：工作记忆（WM）的理论和模型至少自20世纪90年代中期以来一直由持续活动假说主导。过去十年间，随着所谓“活动静默”工作记忆的实验证据不断积累，以及解释稳健的多项目工作记忆面临根本性困难，学界对将持续活动作为工作记忆信息短期维持机制的局限性日益关注。因此，目前替代性理论大多转向探索快速突触可塑性作为其底层机制。在此背景下，非赫布型与赫布型突触可塑性的问题自然浮现。本综述聚焦快速赫布可塑性，并追溯基于这种联想学习形式构建的工作记忆理论与模型的起源。