Curly braces are used to explicitly specify the end of a variable name. For example:
echo "This square is {$square->width}00 centimeters broad.";
So, your case is really a combination of two special cases. You’re allowed to access class variables using curly braces and like so:
$class->{'variable_name'} // Same as $class->variable_name
$class->{'variable' . '_name'} // Dynamic values are also allowed
And in your case, you’re just surrounding them with the curly brace syntax.
See the PHP manual, “complex (curly) syntax.”