Enhanced communication during brain imaging of children and older adults: Cognitive neuroscience of memory across the lifespan

儿童和老年人大脑成像期间增强沟通：整个生命周期记忆的认知神经科学

• 批准号: RTI-2020-00507
• 负责人: Barense, Morgan
• 金额: $ 4.19万
• 依托单位: University of Toronto
• 依托单位国家: 加拿大
• 项目类别: Research Tools and Instruments
• 财政年份: 2019
• 资助国家: 加拿大
• 起止时间: 2019-01-01 至 2020-12-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nserc-crsng.gc.ca/ase-oro/Details-Detailles_eng.asp?id=690740
• 关键词: Enhanced; communication; during; brain; imaging

Memory is a key ability in early life, allowing us to learn new things about our world. It remains important throughout the lifespan, and shows declines even in healthy aging. Recent advances in brain imaging have allowed us to start asking questions about the subtle ways in which memory changes across our lives. Our proposed research will characterize age-related changes in how the brain forms, modifies, and accesses our memories. One program of research will ask whether in older adults, the simple act of retrieving a memory from an experience prioritizes it to be enhanced during the special memory processing that occurs during sleep. A second research program will assess whether developmental differences in what gets extracted from an experience begins during the original perception of the ongoing experience, with children potentially segmenting their experience into finer-grained sub-events than adults. A third study will ask whether retrieving a memory impacts what is stored, with differences in the maturity of the brain dictating how its contents get transformed. Our work requires the ability to present engaging, complex, real-world stimuli with sound to participants while they are immersed in the noisy environment of a magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scanner. Moreover, it is of utmost importance that our youngest and oldest volunteers alike feel safe, comfortable, and reassured in the MRI. To accomplish this research, we are requesting a two-way MRI communication system that allows for both the delivery of sound stimuli to volunteers in the MRI, as well as for the volunteers to speak back to the researchers at any time. This system is the only one in the world to provide active noise cancellation for both headphones and microphone that is custom to the unique sound profile of the MRI scanner; it will also enhance participants' physical comfort with its low-profile design. These programs of research, made possible by the requested equipment, will help us understand how the neural basis of human memoryessential for learning and central to our identities as humanschanges over the lifespan.

记忆力是早期生活中的一项关键能力，让我们能够学习关于我们世界的新事物。它在整个生命周期中仍然很重要，即使在健康的衰老过程中也会出现下降。最近大脑成像的进步使我们能够开始质疑记忆在我们生活中以何种微妙的方式发生变化。我们提出的研究将描述大脑如何形成、修改和访问我们的记忆的与年龄相关的变化。一个研究项目将询问，在老年人中，从一次经历中提取记忆的简单行为是否会优先考虑在睡眠过程中进行特殊的记忆处理。第二个研究项目将评估从一种体验中提取什么的发展差异是否始于对正在进行的体验的原始感知，即儿童可能会将他们的体验划分为比成年人更细粒度的子事件。第三项研究将询问提取记忆是否会影响存储的内容，大脑成熟度的不同决定了其内容是如何转化的。我们的工作需要能够在参与者沉浸在磁共振成像(MRI)扫描仪的嘈杂环境中时，向他们呈现引人入胜的、复杂的、带有声音的真实世界刺激。此外，最重要的是，我们最年轻和最年长的志愿者都能在核磁共振检查中感到安全、舒适和放心。为了完成这项研究，我们需要一种双向MRI通信系统，该系统允许在MRI中向志愿者传递声音刺激，以及允许志愿者随时与研究人员回话。该系统是世界上唯一一个同时为耳机和麦克风提供有源消噪的系统，这是针对MRI扫描仪独特的声音轮廓而定制的；它的低调设计还将增强参与者的身体舒适性。这些研究项目由所需的设备实现，将帮助我们了解人类记忆的神经基础是如何在一生中发生变化的，记忆是学习所必需的，也是我们作为人类身份的核心。