Semantic contributions to episodic memory

这个应用程序描述了一个3年的培训计划，将使我，一个认知神经科学家与 在记忆巩固和神经影像学方法的背景下，进行相互作用的研究 语义知识和情景记忆之间的联系共同监督的博士沙龙tropson-schill，一个专家 在概念和语义知识的认知和神经组织领域，H。分支 Coslett，一位在脑刺激方面有着丰富经验的神经学家，我建议研究语义如何 知识塑造了新的情景记忆，以及它们的皮层表征如何改变可能决定了新的情景记忆。 情景记忆受语义知识影响的程度。拟议的实验旨在 解决了语义知识和情景记忆巩固文献中的两个空白。一、记忆力 巩固研究通常将新的情景记忆与其他过去的情景记忆区分开来（正交化） 在现实中，情景记忆几乎总是由元素的重新组合组成 (e.g.位置、地点、对象），我们已经获得了丰富的语义知识。有多少信息 随着时间的推移，语义元素与记忆中的新情节元素相互作用或产生偏见还不清楚。第二、 过去研究先验知识对新记忆的作用的工作通常集中在先验知识如何影响新记忆上。 促进新记忆的编码和检索，而不是它们如何受到先前记忆的影响。 知识为了解决这一限制以前的工作，我提出了一系列的实验，探讨如何语义 知识系统地偏向情景记忆，以及这种偏见如何受到知识的影响。 前颞叶（ATL）是完整语义的关键皮层结构， 知识在目标1中，我提出了一个行为实验，它利用了 语义知识，即类别典型性和抽象层次，以了解语义如何 知识影响新的情景记忆。我采用了一种连续的检索方法来解开 由语义知识驱动的偏见，来自由于遗忘而产生的错误。在目标2中，我对这个实验进行了调整， 卒中后病变患者，以了解类别知识的特定损伤如何影响 检索虽然我概述了对ATL损伤程度更大的患者的具体预测，但我采用了 探索性方法来识别语义和情节信息之间的其他潜在集成点。 在目标3中，我使用经颅磁刺激来测试情景记忆是否更偏向于 随着时间的推移，它们在ATL中的表现越来越多。拟议的研究将 有助于我们理解语义知识的神经机制 新的情景记忆，它可能会激发新的康复策略，为个人遭受记忆 损伤

This application describes a 3-year training plan that will enable me, a cognitive neuroscientist with a background in memory consolidation and neuroimaging methods, to conduct research on the interaction between semantic knowledge and episodic memory. Co-supervised by Dr. Sharon Thompson-Schill, an expert in the field of the cognitive and neural organization of concepts and semantic knowledge, and Dr. H. Branch Coslett, a neurologist with extensive experience in brain stimulation, I propose to examine how semantic knowledge shapes new episodic memories, and how changes their cortical representation may determine the extent to which episodic memories are influenced by semantic knowledge. The proposed experiments aim to address two gaps in the literature on semantic knowledge and episodic memory consolidation. First, memory consolidation research typically treats new episodic memories as distinct (orthogonalized) from other past experiences, when in reality, episodic memories are virtually always made up of re-combinations of elements (e.g. locations, places, objects) for which we already have acquired rich semantic knowledge. How such semantic elements interact with, or bias, new episodic elements in memories over time is unclear. Second, past work investigating the role of prior knowledge on new memories is often focused on how prior knowledge facilitates the encoding and retrieval of new memories, rather than how they may be biased by prior knowledge. To address this limitation of prior work, I propose a series of experiments that probe how semantic knowledge systematically biases episodic memories, and how this bias may be influenced by the representation of the memory in the anterior temporal lobe (ATL), a cortical structure critical for intact semantic knowledge. In Aim 1, I propose a behavioral experiment that leverages the hierarchical organization of semantic knowledge, namely category typicality and levels of abstraction, to understand how semantic knowledge influences new episodic memories. I employ a continuous measure of retrieval to disentangle biases driven by semantic knowledge from errors due to forgetting. In Aim 2, I adapt this experiment for patients with post-stroke lesions to understand how specific impairments in category knowledge influence retrieval. While I outline specific predictions for patients with greater extent of damage in ATL, I adopt an exploratory approach to identify other potential sites of integration between semantic and episodic information. In Aim 3, I employ transcranial magnetic stimulation to test whether episodic memories are more biased by semantic knowledge as they become increasingly represented in ATL over time. The proposed research will contribute to our understanding of the neural mechanisms underlying the contributions of semantic knowledge to new episodic memory, and it may inspire novel rehabilitation strategies for individuals suffering from memory impairments.