CAREER: Integrating Neuroimaging and Patient Studies of Learning and Decision Making

学习对行为至关重要，它使生物体能够借鉴过去的经验来改进选择。一个基本问题是，参与学习的不同大脑系统如何相互作用，以支持适应性决策。在美国国家科学基金会的资助下，达芙妮·肖哈米正在研究这个基本问题。人们逐渐了解行动和结果之间关系的一种方法是使用试错反馈。这种类型的学习传统上被定义为内隐或习惯性的，它被认为依赖于一种叫做纹状体的神经结构。一个独特和独立的学习系统被认为是唯一支持事实和事件的外显记忆，并依赖于海马体。新出现的数据表明，这种关于记忆的双系统观点过于简单化了。这个研究项目探索不同的大脑系统是如何相互作用并共同指导行为的。该项目采用一种综合方法，利用健康个体的功能性磁共振成像（fMRI）研究，结合对特定脑系统孤立损伤患者的学习能力的研究。影像学研究提供了对大脑时空特征和认知机制的深入了解。患者研究增加了对特定学习过程系统的必要性的证据。通过整合功能成像和患者研究，该项目的结果将有助于更深入地了解纹状体和海马体在学习中的作用，以及这些学习系统如何相互作用以指导适应性行为。这个研究项目为本科生和研究生的培训和教育提供了独特的机会。整合认知神经科学的多个核心工具（功能成像，患者研究，行为分析），学生在一个统一的研究问题的不同方法训练。通过这种培训，他们学会重视融合方法的原则，这一主题在与具有互补专业知识的实验室的学生和教师定期联合会议的计划中得到进一步强调。确定不同形式的学习背后的大脑和认知机制，将为潜在的未来干预措施奠定基础，以改善健康个体和脑部疾病个体的教育和治疗学习缺陷。为了促进这一转化过程，该研究方案构成了一个关于学习和大脑研究与教育和公共卫生的相关性的公共宣传方案的基础。公众讲座和认知神经科学的本科课程在媒体上侧重于认知神经科学研究在社会许多方面的相关性的广泛交流，包括教育、法律和医学。

Learning is essential to behavior, enabling organisms to draw on past experience to improve choices. A fundamental question is how different brain systems involved in learning interact to support adaptive decisions. With funding from the National Science Foundation, Daphne Shohamy is addressing this fundamental question. One way in which people gradually learn the relationship between actions and outcomes is by using trial-by-error feedback. This type of learning has traditionally been defined as implicit or habitual, and it is thought to depend on a neural structure called the striatum. A distinct and independent learning system is thought to uniquely support explicit memory for facts and events and to depend on the hippocampus. Emerging data suggest that this dual-system view of memory is over-simplified. This research program explores how different brain systems for learning interact and jointly guide behavior. The project adopts an integrative approach that draws on functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) studies in healthy individuals, combined with studies of learning in patients with isolated damage to specific brain systems. Imaging studies provide insight into the spatial and temporal characteristics of brain and cognitive mechanisms. Patient studies augment evidence of the necessity of a system for specific learning processes. By integrating functional imaging and patient research, results from this project will contribute to a deeper understanding of the role of the striatum and the hippocampus in learning, and of how these learning systems interact to guide adaptive behavior.This research program provides unique opportunities for training and education at both the undergraduate and graduate levels. Integrating multiple core tools of cognitive neuroscience (functional imaging, patient studies, behavioral analyses), students are trained in different approaches to a unified research question. Through this training, they learn to value the principle of converging methods, a theme that is further emphasized in a program of regular joint meetings with students and faculty in laboratories with complementary expertise. Determining the brain and cognitive mechanisms underlying different forms of learning will lay the foundation for potential future interventions to improve education and treat learning deficits, both in healthy individuals and in individuals with brain disorders. To facilitate this translational process, the research program forms the basis of a program of public outreach about the relevance of research on learning and the brain for education and public health. Public lectures and an undergraduate course on cognitive neuroscience in the media focus on broad communication of the relevance of cognitive neuroscience research for many aspects of society, including education, law and medicine.