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Clearing the Contents of Working Memory: Mechanisms and Representations

清除工作记忆的内容：机制和表征

基本信息

批准号：
9301668
负责人：
Marie T Banich
金额：
$ 15.43万
依托单位：
UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO
依托单位国家：
美国
项目类别：
财政年份：
2016
资助国家：
美国
起止时间：
2016-06-20 至 2019-03-31
项目状态：
已结题

来源：
https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/9301668
关键词：
Address Apple Attention Behavioral Brain Brain imaging Brain region Buffers Categories Characteristics Data Ensure Excision Face Feeling Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging Goals Grapes Imaging Techniques Individual Individual Differences Information Retrieval Investigation Learning Melons Memory Mental Depression Mental disorders Methods Mind Nature Negative Valence Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder Outcome Outcomes Research Participant Patient Self-Report Pattern Pear Persons Play Prefrontal Cortex Process Psyche structure Recording of previous events Reporting Research Research Personnel Role Sampling Short-Term Memory Stream System Techniques Testing Therapeutic Intervention Thinking Time Update Work cognitive control computer science design indexing innovation internal control long term memory memory process neuroimaging neuromechanism novel operation public health relevance relating to nervous system tool

项目摘要

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The overall objective of the current project is to understand the neural mechanisms that allow us to remove information from our current thoughts. For the last half century, it has been known that we have a limited capacity to concurrently keep information in mind at one time, typically considered to be about 7 items. This capacity is often referred to as working memory. Surprisingly, what is not known, however, is how we remove information from working memory, so as to either allow other items in or to clear it entirely. Understanding how information is removed from working memory, and which brain systems allow one to do so, is important not only from the perspective of obtaining a better understanding of how the brain influences the way we think, but also because such an understanding has important implications for psychological disorders. Many psychological disorders are characterized by an inability to remove certain types of information from working memory. For example, individuals with obsessive-compulsive disorder have difficulty not thinking about what harm might befall them or others, and individuals with depression have difficulty not ruminating on negative ideas and feelings. One of the reasons that it has been so hard to understand how information is removed from working memory is the large challenge involved in determining what a person might be thinking of at a particular point in time, and/or knowing whether indeed thoughts have been cleared from working memory. The goal of this project is to leverage brain-imaging techniques to overcome this problem. Recent techniques drawn from computer science allow one to characterize the pattern of brain activity associated with particular items (e.g., apples, pears, grapes, melons) or particular categories of items (frui, tools, faces, buildings). The project will utilize such methods to verify, via a pattern of brain activity, on which occasions individuals have either cleared their mind of certain items, or replaced them with other thoughts (e.g., switched from thinking about an apple to thinking about a pear, switched from thinking about an apple to thinking about a hammer). Then, the study will test the hypothesis that a certain set of brain regions in the prefrontal cortex plays a central roe in successfully changing the nature of the information held in working memory. In addition, the proposed research will examine how these neural mechanisms vary depending on differences across individuals. In particular, the project is designed to gather information both on how much difficulty an individual reports in controlling his or her thoughts, and also on the topics and characteristics of an individual's everyday thoughts (e.g., they are usually about things that happened in the past, negative, vague in scope, etc.). It is predicted that individuals who have difficulty controlling their thoughts and who have vague and over general thoughts will have more difficulty removing information from working memory, and they will show less activity in brain regions that control such thoughts. If this hypothesis is confirmed, it could provide new avenues for therapeutic intervention for psychological disorders characterized by repetitive thought.

描述（由申请人提供）：当前项目的总体目标是了解允许我们从当前思想中删除信息的神经机制。在过去的半个世纪里，人们已经知道，我们一次同时记住信息的能力是有限的，通常被认为是大约7个项目。这种能力通常被称为工作记忆。然而，令人惊讶的是，我们不知道的是，我们如何从工作记忆中删除信息，以便允许其他项目进入或完全清除它。了解信息是如何从工作记忆中移除的，以及哪些大脑系统允许我们这样做，不仅从更好地理解大脑如何影响我们思考的角度来看很重要，而且因为这样的理解对心理障碍有重要的意义。许多心理障碍的特征是无法从工作记忆中删除某些类型的信息。例如，患有强迫症的人很难不去想自己或他人可能受到的伤害，而患有抑郁症的人很难不去反思消极的想法和感受。很难理解信息是如何从工作记忆中被清除的原因之一是，要确定一个人在某个特定时间点可能在想什么，以及/或知道思想是否确实已经从工作记忆中清除，这是一个巨大的挑战。这个项目的目标是利用大脑成像技术来克服这个问题。最近从计算机科学中提取的技术允许人们表征与特定项目相关联的大脑活动的模式（例如，苹果、梨、葡萄、甜瓜）或特定类别的物品（水果、工具、面孔、建筑物）。该项目将利用这种方法，通过大脑活动的模式来验证，在这种情况下，个人要么清除了他们头脑中的某些项目，要么用其他想法取代它们（例如，从想苹果变成想梨，从想苹果变成想锤子）。然后，这项研究将检验一个假设，即前额叶皮层中的某组大脑区域在成功改变工作记忆中所保存信息的性质方面发挥着中心作用。此外，拟议的研究将研究这些神经机制如何根据个体差异而变化。特别是，该项目旨在收集有关个人在控制他或她的思想方面有多大困难的信息，以及个人日常思想的主题和特征（例如，它们通常是关于过去发生的事情，消极的，范围模糊的，等等。据预测，那些难以控制自己的想法和模糊和过于笼统的想法的人将更难以从工作记忆中删除信息，并且他们在控制这些想法的大脑区域中表现出较少的活动。如果这一假设得到证实，它可以为以重复思维为特征的心理障碍的治疗干预提供新的途径。