Eyeblink Conditioning in Infants and Adults

描述(申请人提供)：在出生第一年的后半段回忆巨大变化的能力。在此期间，婴儿的表现有很大的差异：一些婴儿在长时间延迟后才能回忆起来，而另一些婴儿则不会。导致个体差异的一个因素可能是神经基质的发育状态的差异，特别是海马体的组成部分。尽管目前还没有用于典型发育中的人类婴儿的海马体功能的直接测量，但一个有前景的间接测量是微量眨眼条件作用，这是已知的对海马体依赖的，使在这项任务中的表现成为人类婴儿海马体发育的一个很好的候选指标。尽管有这种潜力，但还没有关于生命第一年期间眨眼痕迹条件变化的研究，第一年是海马体实质性和显著发展的时期。这项拟议中的研究是第一个这样的研究，也是一系列关于海马体发育(通过年龄相关的眨眼条件变化来衡量)和长期记忆(通过识别(使用事件相关电位：ERPs来衡量)和回忆(通过诱发和延迟模仿来衡量)之间关系的第一次调查。该提案的第一个目标是检查延迟(标准和长时间)和跟踪眨眼条件作用任务在第一年下半年的表现变化。由于任务所涉及的神经结构(分别是小脑和海马体)的不同发展，延迟条件反射性能的变化速度预计会比跟踪条件反射性能的变化更快。第二个具体目标是比较婴儿和成人在延迟和追踪条件反射任务上的表现，以确定行为的相对功能成熟度。由于跟踪眨眼条件作用可以在整个生命周期内和跨物种进行测试(更典型的是，不同的种群必须在不同的任务中进行测试)，它可以用来检查记忆发展的连续性和间断性。由于这项任务可以跨物种使用，因此它具有巨大的潜力，可以在已知经历记忆缺陷的特殊人群的人类婴儿(例如，糖尿病母亲的婴儿；未足月出生但其他方面健康的婴儿)中“诊断”特定的记忆损害来源。因此，示踪眨眼条件作用作为海马体发育的标志，对基础研究和翻译研究都具有重要的前景。在出生第一年的后半段，回忆的能力发生了巨大的变化。在这个早期，高危人群的行为中明显存在记忆障碍，包括糖尿病母亲的婴儿和在足月之前出生但其他方面健康的婴儿。与正常发育和行为缺陷有关的一个因素是海马体的完整性。这项拟议的研究旨在测试眨眼条件作用作为海马体完整性的可能标记或探针，从而建立用于早期诊断和治疗的任务。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The ability to recall changes dramatically in the 2nd half of the 1st year of life. During this period there is great variability in performance: some infants recall after long delays, whereas others do not. One factor underlying individual differences may be variability in the developmental status of the neural substrate, specifically components of the hippocampus. Although there are no direct measures of hippocampal functioning for use with typically developing human infants, a promising indirect measure is trace eyeblink conditioning, which is known to be hippocampally dependent, making performance on the task an excellent candidate as a marker for hippocampal development in human infants. In spite of this potential, there have been no studies of changes in trace eyeblink conditioning across the 1st year of life, a period of substantial & significant hippocampal development. The proposed research is the first such study & also is the first in what will be a series of investigations of relations between hippocampal development (as measured by age-related changes in trace eyeblink conditioning) & long-term memory assessed via recognition (measured using event- related potentials: ERPs) & recall (measured by elicited & deferred imitation). The first aim of the proposal is to examine changes in performance on delay (standard & long) & trace eyeblink conditioning tasks across the latter half of the first year. Due to differential development of the neural structures implicated in the tasks (cerebellum & hippocampus, respectively), delay conditioning performance is expected to change more rapidly than trace conditioning performance. The second specific aim is to compare infants' performance on delay & trace conditioning tasks with that of adults' to determine relative functional maturity of behavior. Because trace eyeblink conditioning can be tested across the lifespan & across species (more typically, different populations must be tested on different tasks), it can be used to examine continuities & discontinuities in memory development. Because the task can be used across species, it has enormous potential to "diagnose" the specific source of memory impairment in special populations of human infants known to experience memory deficits (e.g., infants of diabetic mothers; infants born prior to term but otherwise healthy). Development of trace eyeblink conditioning as a marker for hippocampal development thus holds significant promise for basic as well as translational research. The ability to recall changes dramatically in the 2nd half of the 1st year of life. At this early age, impairments in memory are apparent in the behavior of at-risk groups, including infants of diabetic mothers and infants born prior to term but otherwise healthy. One factor implicated in both normative development and behavioral deficits is the integrity of the hippocampus. The proposed research is to test trace eyeblink conditioning as a possible marker or probe of the integrity of the hippocampus, thereby establishing the task for use in early diagnosis and treatment.