D. O. Hebb (1949), The Organization of Behavior: A Neuropsychological Theory, Wiley, New York
Key takeaways
Filed, not read. Known here by what it is standardly cited for.
- The neurophysiological postulate: when an axon of cell A repeatedly or persistently takes part in firing cell B, some growth or metabolic change increases A’s efficiency in firing B.
- Repeated co-activity builds cell assemblies, groups of cells that can reverberate and so outlast the stimulus that formed them, and assemblies link into phase sequences.
- It is standardly cited as the origin of “cells that fire together wire together”, a slogan that is not Hebb’s wording.
Standing in the record
Filed on 2026-10-11 at the owner’s request, for the nucleating-argument line. Read across, Hebb’s postulate is a persistence trigger keyed to recurrence (CLAIM-185): repeated co-activity is what makes a connection last. It differs from the record’s rule in being graded, not a count, and in strengthening with use, which bears on what turns persistence into anchoring (QUESTION-038). A reading should check how Hebb states the postulate and what he says makes an assembly persist.