Neural Substrates of the Development of Recognition Memory

描述(由申请人提供)：背景和目标：识别过去事件的能力是我们记忆能力的一个基本方面。有两个过程被认为是识别记忆的基础：回忆和熟悉。回忆是允许检索与最初遇到事件的上下文相关联的不同特征的过程。熟悉度是在没有背景特征记忆的情况下，允许对事件的记忆痕迹的强度进行全局评估的过程。行为研究已经证明了这两个过程之间的发展分离：回忆似乎在童年和青春期的过程中继续发展，而熟悉似乎在童年时期变得相对稳定。对成年人的认知神经科学研究表明，回忆和熟悉依赖于不同的大脑结构，这些脑区的活动在编码和提取时都是分离的。我们知识中的一个缺口与记忆和熟悉之间发展分离的神经机制有关。拟议的研究旨在通过检查开发过程中与编码相关的过程来解决这一差距。该项目的具体目标是：(1)确定记忆发展的神经相关因素；(2)确定熟悉程度发展的神经相关因素。方法：这项拟议的研究涉及8岁、10岁、14岁和18岁(每个年龄组20名参与者)的事件相关功能磁共振成像(FMRI)实验。参与者将在附带的编码任务期间进行扫描。稍后将测试扫描仪中处理的项目的记忆，并根据稍后的记忆表现提取大脑活动的测量结果。意义：这项拟议的研究将产生关于记忆神经底物的年龄差异以及与编码过程相关的熟悉性的新知识。这些发现将有助于发展更全面的识别记忆理论，以及理解大脑功能和认知发展之间的关系。与公共健康相关：关于典型记忆发展的知识对于理解非典型记忆发展至关重要，例如，在患有创伤性脑损伤或1型糖尿病的儿童群体中就可以看到这种情况。了解不同学习机制发展的神经关联对于促进广泛领域的适应功能是相关的。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Background and Aims: The ability to recognize past events is a fundamental aspect of our ability to remember. Two processes are thought to underlie recognition memory: recollection and familiarity. Recollection is the process that allows for the retrieval of distinct features associated with the context in which the event was originally encountered. Familiarity is the process that allows for the global assessment of the strength of the memory trace of the event, in the absence of memory for contextual features. A developmental dissociation between the two processes has been documented in behavioral research: Whereas recollection appears to continue to develop over the course of childhood and adolescence, familiarity appears to become relatively stable during childhood. Cognitive neuroscience research with adults has shown that recollection and familiarity rely on distinct brain structures and that activity in these brain regions is dissociable both at time of encoding and at time of retrieval. One gap in our knowledge concerns the neural mechanisms underlying the developmental dissociation between recollection and familiarity. The proposed research aims to address this gap by examining encoding-related processes during development. The specific aims of the proposed project are: (1) to identify the neural correlates of the development of recollection, and (2) to identify the neural correlates of the development of familiarity. Methods: The proposed research involves an event-related functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) experiment with 8-, 10-, 14-, and 18-years-olds (20 participants per age group). Participants will be scanned during an incidental encoding task. Memory for the items processed in the scanner will be tested later, and measures of brain activity will be extracted as a function of this later memory performance. Significance: The proposed research will generate new knowledge about age-differences in the neural substrates of recollection and familiarity related to encoding processes. The findings will contribute to the development of a more comprehensive theory of recognition memory, as well as to an understanding of the relation between brain functioning and cognitive development. Relevance for public health: Knowledge about typical memory development is critical to understanding atypical memory development, as seen, for example, in child populations with traumatic brain injury or type-1 diabetes. Understanding the neural correlates of the development of various learning mechanisms is relevant to facilitating adaptive functioning in a wide range of domains.