Neural systems for the dynamic use of memory

乔尔·沃斯博士是一名认知神经科学家，致力于研究记忆的大脑基础和各种病理状态导致的记忆衰退，现提出他的职业发展计划。伊利诺伊大学厄巴纳-香槟分校贝克曼高级科学技术研究所的Neal Cohen博士将指导申请人。科恩博士是一位研究记忆神经基础的杰出学者，长期以来一直在培养成功的研究人员，贝克曼研究所为认知神经科学培训提供了丰富的环境。此外，两位著名的记忆研究人员将为申请人的科学发展做出贡献，包括加州大学伯克利分校的Mark D'Esposito博士和爱荷华大学医学院的Daniel Tranel博士。沃斯博士的培训将包括开发多种方法的专业知识，以识别认知和行为的大脑基质。培训将包括测量大脑活动的非侵入性方法，以及研究局灶性脑损伤患者的认知障碍，以及健康个体的神经处理暂时中断的影响。培训还将包括研究衰老对记忆的影响，以及使用计算机模拟环境来研究现实情况下的认知。本研究计划旨在探索协调神经系统如何透过策略性分配资源来优化学习与记忆，以满足特定学习情境的需求。这一过程依赖于执行功能、注意力和记忆的融合，并被针对这三个认知领域的大脑基质的病理事件（如阿尔茨海默病、精神分裂症、ADD/ADHD和自闭症）所破坏。这项研究还试图开发出一种最佳策略，可以让老年人用来对抗普遍存在的与年龄相关的记忆衰退的挑战。由于正常的衰老，几乎每个人都受到这种挑战的影响。所提出的研究对于老年人记忆缺陷的修复具有明确的临床意义，对于理解病理影响执行功能、注意力和记忆的机制具有广泛的意义。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): A career development plan is proposed for Dr. Joel Voss, a cognitive neuroscientist committed to a research career studying the brain substrates of memory and memory decline due to various pathological states. Dr. Neal Cohen at the Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign will mentor the applicant. Dr. Cohen is an eminent scholar of the neural basis of memory and has a long record of training successful researchers, and the Beckman Institute provides a rich environment for cognitive neuroscience training. Furthermore, two renowned memory researchers will contribute to the scientific development of the applicant, including Dr. Mark D'Esposito at the University of California at Berkeley and Dr. Daniel Tranel at the University of Iowa College of Medicine. Dr. Voss' training will include developing expertise with multi-methods approaches to identifying the brain substrates of cognition and behavior. Training will involve noninvasive methods for measuring brain activity as well as the study of cognitive impairments in patients with focal brain damage and the effects of temporary disruption of neural processing in healthy individuals. Training will also involve studying the effects of aging on memory and using computer-simulated environments to study cognition in realistic circumstances. The proposed research program aims to discover how coordinated neural systems optimize learning and memory by strategically allocating resources in order to meet the demands of a particular learning situation. This process depends upon the confluence of executive function, attention, and memory, and is disrupted by pathological events that target the brain substrates of these three cognitive domains, such as Alzheimer's disease, Schizophrenia, ADD/ADHD, and autism. The research also seeks to develop optimal strategies that can be used by older individuals to combat the pervasive challenge of age-related memory decline, which affects almost every individual as a result of normal aging. The proposed research has transparent clinical relevance with regard to remediation of the memory deficits of older individuals and broad relevance with regard to understanding the mechanisms of pathological effects on executive function, attention, and memory. PUBLIC HEALTH RELEVANCE: This research is intended to discover how the brain enables individuals to strategically control how they interface with the environment in order to optimize learning and retain as much information as possible. In addition, this learning process will be studied in older adults in order to develop interventions to guard against the pervasive problem of memory decline due to normal aging. The knowledge that will be gained is relevant to understanding the mechanisms by which many disease states interfere with the neural machinery of memory, including Alzheimer's disease, Schizophrenia, ADD/ADHD, and autism, and in developing treatments for these ailments.