Neuronal- and systems-level understanding of spatial and episodic memory.

我们的记忆定义了我们是谁，以及失去了日常生活(或？插曲？)记忆，例如阿尔茨海默病？S病(AD)、颞叶癫痫或中风，对一个人？S独立生活的能力有毁灭性的影响，并给照顾者和国家带来巨大负担。通过药物(调节神经元如何创造和存储记忆)、技术设备和记忆策略，无论是在健康方面还是在疾病方面，记忆都有巨大的改善潜力。然而，我们目前对记忆过程的理解水平意味着，我们距离能够充分利用这些干预措施还有很长的路要走。关键的是，从分子和细胞(神经元层面)到整个大脑(系统层面)细胞群体的活动，我们对记忆过程的理解之间存在差距。这项研究旨在通过详细了解大脑中神经元的活动和相互作用如何产生记忆来弥合这一差距。大部分研究都集中在空间记忆上，可以从动物和人类身上收集可比较的数据。通过率先使用虚拟现实在现实的大规模环境中测试记忆，我们已经证明，人类和动物使用类似的神经元表示法来寻找方向，并且根据大脑中神经元的活动来理解记忆是可能的。由于空间记忆丧失是阿尔茨海默病的一个突出的早期特征，因此这一发现将直接与了解和监测该病的进展有关。了解大脑记忆事件的空间背景的基本神经机制本身就是一项挑战，也将对医学和治疗科学的进步产生连锁反应。例如，它可以帮助我们理解当一个新的事件发生时，新的记忆是如何被触发的，这种记忆可能是如何出错的，从而导致记忆丧失，以及药物如何避免这种丧失。再举一个例子，我们将测试这样一种观点，即创伤后应激障碍中不想要的侵入性记忆发生是因为与创伤事件相关的视觉、声音和感觉的表征已经与它们发生的特定背景的表征脱节。

Our memories define who we are and the loss of day-to-day (or ?episodic?) memory, for example as a result of Alzheimer?s disease (AD), temporal lobe epilepsy or stroke, has a devastating impact on one?s capacity to live independently and places a huge burden on caregivers and the state. There is an enormous potential for memory to be improved, both in health and disease, via drugs (which modulate how neurons create and store memories), technological devices and memory strategies. However, our current level of understanding of memory processes means that we are a long way from being able to fully utilize these interventions. Critically, there is a gap between our understanding of memory processes at the level of molecules and cells (the neuronal level) through to the activity of populations of cells throughout the brain (the systems level). This research is aimed at bridging this gap by providing a detailed understanding of how the actions and interactions of neurons in the brain gives rise to memory. Much of the research focusses on spatial memory, where comparable data can be collected from animals and humans. By pioneering the use of virtual reality to test memory in realistic large-scale environments we have shown that similar neuronal representations are used by humans and animals to find their way around, and that it is possible to understand memory for where things are in terms of the actions of neurons within the brain. Because loss of spatial memory is a prominent and early feature of AD, the findings will be directly relevant to understanding and monitoring the progression of this disease. As well as being a challenge in its own right, understanding the basic neuronal mechanisms by which the brain remembers the spatial context of events, will also have knock-on effects for the progress of medical and therapeutic science. For one example, it can help us to understand how new memories are triggered when a novel event occurs, and how this might go wrong so that memories are lost, and how such loss might be avoided by drugs. For another example, we will test the idea that unwanted intrusive memories in posttraumatic stress disorder occur because the representations of the sights, sounds and feelings associated with a traumatic event have become disconnected with the representations of the specific context in which they occurred.