Continuous tracking of long timescale memory replay across event boundaries

跨事件边界连续跟踪长时间尺度内存重放

• 批准号: 437219953
• 负责人: Professor Sebastian Michelmann
• 金额: --
• 依托单位: Princeton Neuroscience Institute
• 依托单位国家: 德国
• 项目类别: Research Fellowships
• 财政年份: 2019
• 资助国家: 德国
• 起止时间: 2018-12-31 至 2022-12-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://gepris.dfg.de/gepris/projekt/437219953?language=en
• 关键词: Continuous; tracking; long; timescale; memory

Consulting our memory often involves replaying a long sequence of events. This morning we may have left the house, taken the train to work and then talked to our colleagues at the office. While we can all intuitively perform such a mental journey through our past, surprisingly little is known about how such continuous episodes are replayed from memory. Importantly, the neural mechanisms that determine which information comes back at what time are not well understood. Recent advances in analysis methods in neuroscience have now made it possible to track information based on neural activity that is measured via electrophysiology. This means that we now have a window into the brain to observe individual memories as they are replayed. These methods will be applied in this project using a rare opportunity to work with patients that are undergoing intracranial recordings in the course of epilepsy treatment. This will make it possible to track continuous episodes as they unfold in memory in recordings from electrodes that are implanted directly into the human brain. Importantly, recent evidence suggests that the structure of a continuous episode may impact how this information reappears in memory. Specifically, event boundaries – moments when one natural and meaningful unit ends, and another begins – may be crucial to guide our brain through extended episodes. This project will therefore test the specific hypothesis that the boundaries between events (e.g. when we just left the house, or when we arrive at work) are starting points that guide us through continuous episodes in memory. Like a CD player allows us to play tracks in real time but also to skip ahead and start a new track from the beginning, event boundaries may provide us with starting points to replay patterns from memory and we may be able to skip ahead to these starting points. Behavioral experiments will systematically investigate what determines how long it takes to search long episodes in memory for an answer. It is predicted that longer episodes will take longer to search, however, it is not clear how event boundaries will influence this memory search. The direct electrophysiological recordings from the human brain will further help to understand how different brain structures collaborate during memory replay and therein at event boundaries.

查阅我们的记忆通常涉及到回放一长串事件。今天早上，我们可能离开家，坐火车去上班，然后在办公室和同事交谈。虽然我们都可以直观地通过我们的过去进行这样的精神之旅，但令人惊讶的是，我们对这些连续的情节是如何从记忆中重放的知之甚少。重要的是，决定哪些信息在什么时候回来的神经机制还没有得到很好的理解。神经科学中分析方法的最新进展现在使得基于通过电生理学测量的神经活动来跟踪信息成为可能。这意味着我们现在有了一个进入大脑的窗口，可以在回放个体记忆时观察它们。这些方法将应用于本项目，利用难得的机会与癫痫治疗过程中接受颅内记录的患者一起工作。这将使人们有可能跟踪连续的事件，因为它们在记忆中展开，记录直接植入人脑的电极。重要的是，最近的证据表明，连续事件的结构可能会影响这些信息在记忆中的重现。具体来说，事件边界--一个自然而有意义的单元结束，另一个单元开始的时刻--可能对引导我们的大脑度过延长的事件至关重要。因此，这个项目将测试特定的假设，即事件之间的边界（例如，当我们刚刚离开家，或者当我们到达工作地点时）是引导我们通过记忆中连续事件的起点。就像CD播放器允许我们在真实的时间内播放曲目，但也可以跳过并从头开始新的曲目一样，事件边界可以为我们提供从记忆中重放模式的起点，我们可以跳过这些起点。行为实验将系统地研究是什么决定了在记忆中搜索长片段以获得答案需要多长时间。据预测，较长的情节将需要更长的时间来搜索，但是，目前还不清楚事件边界将如何影响这种记忆搜索。来自人类大脑的直接电生理记录将进一步帮助理解不同的大脑结构在记忆重放期间以及在事件边界处如何协作。