Leveraging visual fidelity to understand the neural mechanisms responsible for remembering images and objects

项目总结 我们记住所见图像的能力是非凡的--我们可以在观看了数千张图片后，正确地判断我们以前是否见过一张图片，每张图片只看了几秒钟。虽然我们对支持视觉识别记忆的大脑区域(包括颞下皮质(IT)、大脑周围皮质和海马体)有一些了解，但这些大脑区域对视觉识别记忆的具体贡献却知之甚少。此外，人们对灵长类大脑如何支持快速获得的视觉记忆信息的灵活概括知之甚少--例如，报告一个物体是否以前被看到过，但可能是在不同的背景或配置中。到目前为止，支持视觉识别记忆的神经机制的研究一直受到这样一个事实的限制，即视觉记忆是在单一图像暴露后存储的，而现有的用于拟合和评估神经机制模型的技术通常只有在应用于相同条件在多次试验中重复的数据时才有效。在这项建议中，我们引入了新的数据分析工具来评估使用单一单位数据的单一曝光视觉记忆模型。在这些实验中，当我们在颞叶结构中记录神经反应时，猴子执行对象不变版本的记忆相似性任务。在目标1中，我们重点研究了信息技术和大脑周围皮质对形成单次暴露视觉记忆行为的概括性的贡献。在目标2中，我们关注内嗅皮层和海马体。总而言之，这些结果将第一次描述信息技术、周围皮质、内嗅皮层和海马体在塑造单一暴露视觉记忆行为的概括性方面的不同贡献。

PROJECT SUMMARY Our ability to remember the images that we have encountered is remarkable - we can correctly determine whether we have seen an image before after viewing thousands, each only for a few seconds. While we have some understanding of the brain areas involved in supporting ‘visual recognition memory’ (including inferotemporal cortex (IT), perirhinal cortex and the hippocampus), the specific contributions that these brain areas make to visual recognition memory are poorly understood. In addition, very little is known about how the primate brain supports the flexible generalization of rapidly acquired visual memory information – for example, to report whether an object has been seen previously, but perhaps in a different context or configuration. To date, investigations of the neural mechanisms that support visual recognition memory have been limited by the fact that visual memories are stored following single image exposures, whereas the techniques that exist to fit and evaluate models of neural mechanism are most often only effective when applied to data in which the same condition was repeated across many trials. In this proposal, we introduce novel data analysis tools to evaluate single-exposure visual memory models with single-unit data. In these experiments, monkeys perform an object-invariant version of a Mnemonic Similarity task as we record neural responses in temporal lobe structures. In Aim 1, we focus on the contributions of IT and perirhinal cortex to shaping the generalization of single-exposure visual memory behavior. In Aim 2, we focus on entorhinal cortex and the hippocampus. Together, these results will, for the first time, describe the differential contributions of IT, perirhinal cortex, entorhinal cortex and the hippocampus to shaping the generalization of single-exposure visual memory behavior.