Pinpointing the neural mechanisms that support the remarkable visual fidelity of visual recognition memory

我们都有过这样令人困惑的经历：看到一个人，记得我们认识他，但却想不起任何其他细节，比如他是谁，或者我们是怎么认识他的。在那些时刻，有时候我们所能记得的，只是一个熟悉的人。这突出了识别记忆与熟悉记忆和更详细的回忆记忆之间的区别。我们每天依靠熟悉记忆来记住我们是否认识特定的人和事。尽管这种类型的记忆非常重要，但我们仍然不了解熟悉记忆是如何在我们的大脑中工作的，尽管之前的研究表明，它可能利用的是与回忆记忆不同的大脑网络。了解熟悉记忆将有助于我们开发治疗记忆障碍的方法，如阿尔茨海默病和其他类型的痴呆症。它还可以帮助我们创造更有效的教育工具，以加强儿童和成人的学习。这个项目旨在了解大脑的不同部分是如何帮助我们记住我们以前是否见过的东西的。为了弄清楚这个问题，这个项目关注的问题是：一张图片要有多大的不同才能让我们知道它与我们记忆中以前看到的图像不同？这个项目比较了准确熟悉记忆时的大脑活动模式和熟悉记忆混乱时的大脑活动模式，以便准确地确定哪些大脑区域参与支持熟悉记忆，并加深我们对识别记忆的神经基础和结构的理解。更具体地说，这项跨物种研究的重点是了解在记忆中起作用的关键大脑区域网络，包括颞下皮层、鼻周皮层、鼻内皮层和海马体，如何促进视觉识别记忆。该研究在记忆相似性任务的背景下探讨了这个问题，该任务探测了人类和猴子在与已经见过的图像相似的诱饵图像存在下区分新图像和熟悉图像的能力。目标1侧重于量化人类和猴子错误记忆所见图像的频率，并将其作为图像相似度的函数。目的2着眼于熟悉性记忆的神经基础，研究猴颞下皮层、鼻周皮层、鼻内皮层和海马神经元细胞和集合活动的相互比较及其与记忆行为的关系。总之，这些结果将首次描述这些大脑区域在形成视觉熟悉度和视觉识别记忆的视觉细节方面的差异和集体贡献。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

We have all had the perplexing experience of seeing someone and remembering that we know them, but not being able to recall any other details, such as who they are or how we know them. In those moments, sometimes all that we can remember is that a person is familiar to us. This highlights a difference in recognition memory between familiarity memory and more detailed recollection memory. We rely on familiarity memory every day to remember whether we know specific people and things. Despite how important this type of memory is, we still do not understand how familiarity memory works in our brains, although previous studies have suggested that it may utilize a different brain network than recollection memory. Understanding familiarity memory will help us develop therapeutic approaches to treat memory disorders such as Alzheimer’s disease and other types of dementia. It could also help us create more effective educational tools to enhance learning in children and adults. This project seeks to understand how different parts of the brain help us remember whether we’ve seen something before. To figure this out, this project focuses on the question: how different does a picture have to be for us to know that it’s different from an image that we remember seeing before? This project compares the pattern of brain activation during accurate familiarity memory with brain activity during confusions in familiarity memory, in order to determine precisely what brain regions are involved in supporting familiarity memory and in order to deepen our understanding of the neural basis and architecture of recognition memory. More specifically, this cross-species study focuses on understanding how a network of key brain regions, believed to play a role in memory, including inferotemporal cortex, perirhinal cortex, entorhinal cortex and the hippocampus contribute to visual recognition memory. The research explores this question in the context of a Mnemonic Similarity task, which probes the ability of humans and monkeys to distinguish novel and familiar images in the presence of lure images that are similar to images that have already been seen. Aim 1 focuses on quantifying how often humans and monkeys falsely remember seeing images as a function of how similar that the images are. Aim 2 focuses on the neural basis of familiarity memory and investigates how neuronal cell and ensemble activity in monkey inferotemporal cortex, perirhinal cortex, entorhinal cortex and the hippocampus compare with one another and correlate with memory behavior. Together, these results will, for the first time, describe the differential and collective contributions of these brain areas to shaping visual familiarity and the visual detail of visual recognition memory.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.