[1] In this, confabulations relate to pathologically induced neural activation patterns depart from direct experience and learned relationships.
In computational modeling of such damage, related brain pathologies such as dyslexia and hallucination result from simulated lesioning[2] and neuron death.
[3] Forms of confabulation in which missing or incomplete information is incorrectly filled in by the brain are generally modelled by the well known neural network process called pattern completion.
[4] Confabulation is central to a theory of cognition and consciousness by S. L. Thaler in which thoughts and ideas originate in both biological and synthetic neural networks as false or degraded memories nucleate upon various forms of neuronal and synaptic fluctuations and damage.
[12] The concept of such opportunistic confabulation grew out of experiments with artificial neural networks that simulated brain cell apoptosis.