https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/10/191007100419.htm

Associative memory is the ability to connect unrelated items and store them in memory -- to associate co-occurring items as a single episode. In this study, published in Physical Review Letters, the team used sequentially arranged patterns to simulate a memory, and found that a computer is able to remember patterns spanning a longer episode when the model takes inhibitory circuits into account. They go on to explain how this finding could be applied to explain our own brains.

"This simple model of processing shows us how the brain handles the pieces of information given in a serial order," explains Professor Tomoki Fukai, head of OIST's Neural Coding and Brain Computing Unit, who led the study with RIKEN collaborator Dr. Tatsuya Haga. "By modelling neurons using computers, we can begin to understand memory processing in our own minds."