CAREER: Memory-based prediction in the human medial temporal lobe

我们经常反思我们的过去，以了解当前的经验或预测未来的事件。 例如，在为朋友选择生日礼物时，我们可以看看过去的生日，以帮助决定今年什么礼物会给朋友带来最大的快乐。 这样，记忆不仅是回顾性的，而且本质上也是前瞻性的。在国家科学基金会的资助下，艾莉森普雷斯顿博士，德克萨斯大学奥斯汀分校的同事们正在使用功能性磁共振成像（fMRI）来了解大脑如何支持基于过去记忆对现在和未来的预测。 尽管几十年来神经科学的研究都集中在回顾性记忆上，但人们对能够前瞻性使用经验的神经生物学机制知之甚少。 然而，丰富的研究历史表明，大脑的内侧颞叶结构对学习和记忆个人经历很重要。 这个项目的一个目标是了解这些大脑结构如何在面对新的经历时重新激活现有的记忆。 在一组研究中，参与者在接受功能磁共振成像时学习事件序列。研究人员正在fMRI数据中寻找证据，以证明在预测序列中即将发生的事件时，先前的记忆会被重新激活。 这个项目的第二个目标是发现记忆如何影响新的学习。为了最大限度地适应未来的使用，记忆不仅包括直接经历的事件的个人记录，还包括通过整合不同事件的知识而建立的记忆。 研究人员正在学习如何在新的情况下记住过去的事件，为新的记忆形成提供机会，将当前的经验与现有的记忆联系起来。 例如，如果今天一个人看到一个不熟悉的人在遛一只熟悉的大丹犬，看到这只狗可能会引发一个人以前看到同一只狗被一个女人遛过的记忆。 通过回忆以前与大丹犬的经历，可以形成一种新的记忆，不仅代表男人和狗之间的关系，女人和狗之间的关系，而且还将男人和女人联系起来，尽管人们从未见过他们在一起。这种整合的记忆是一种将个人经验结合起来预测未来判断和行动的手段。 在相关的功能磁共振成像实验中，参与者研究共享内容的事件，并对这些经历之间的关系做出判断。这些研究使研究人员能够了解大脑如何通过将新事件纳入现有记忆来建立丰富的、有凝聚力的经验记录。该项目的核心使命是将联合收割机研究工作与教学、指导和推广相结合。在高中、本科和研究生各级开展独特的培训和教育活动。学生们正在参加与国家的最先进的功能磁共振成像技术和先进的定量方法的实践培训。该培训为学生提供必要的工具，以解决认知神经科学中的关键问题，并提高其复杂程度。为了确保这些培训机会提供给广泛的学生，研究计划形成了公共宣传工作的基础，鼓励学术研究中心以外的少数民族学生参与神经科学研究。该推广计划包括在高中和社区大学为代表性不足的少数群体提供神经科学概念的课堂演示，组织图尔斯参观学习实验室研究，以及为学生提供暑期助教以获得研究经验。 面向一般社区的公开讲座吸引了公众对基础科学的兴趣，并传达了神经科学的发现如何影响社会的许多方面，如教育和临床实践。

We often reflect on our past to understand current experience or predict future events. For example, in choosing a birthday gift for a friend, we can look to past birthdays for help in deciding what gift would elicit the greatest joy for the friend this year. In this way, memory is not merely retrospective, but also intrinsically prospective. With funding from the National Science Foundation, Alison Preston, Ph.D., and colleagues at the University of Texas at Austin are using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to understand how the brain supports predictions about the present and future based on memories of the past. Despite decades of neuroscience research focused on retrospective memory, very little is known about the neurobiological mechanisms that enable the prospective use of experience. However, a rich history of research suggests that the brain's medial temporal lobe structures are important for learning and remembering individual experiences. One goal of this project is to learn how these brain structures reactivate existing memories in the face of new experiences. In one set of studies, participants learn sequences of events while undergoing fMRI. The researchers are seeking evidence in the fMRI data for reactivation of prior memories during prediction of upcoming events in the sequence. A second goal of this project is to discover how remembering influences new learning. To be maximally adaptive for future use, memories do not simply consist of individual records of directly experienced events but also include memories built by integrating knowledge across different events. The researchers are learning how remembering past events during new situations provides an opportunity for new memories to be formed that connect present experience with existing memories. For example, if today one sees an unfamiliar man walking a familiar Great Dane, the sight of the dog may trigger a memory for a previous occasion on which one saw that same dog being walked by a woman. By recalling the previous experience with the Great Dane, a new memory can be formed that not only represents the relationship between the man and the dog, and the woman and the dog, but also connects the man and the woman, despite ones never having seen them together. Such integrated memories are a means by which individual experiences are combined to anticipate future judgments and actions. In related fMRI experiments, participants study events that share content and make judgments about the relationship between those experiences. These studies are allowing the researchers to understand how the brain builds a rich, cohesive record of experience by incorporating new events into existing memories.A core mission of this project is to combine research efforts with teaching, mentorship, and outreach. Unique training and educational activities are being carried out at the high school, undergraduate, and graduate levels. Students are participating in hands-on training with state-of-the-art fMRI techniques and advanced quantitative methods. This training provides students with the necessary tools to address critical questions in cognitive neuroscience with an increased level of sophistication. To ensure that these training opportunities are available to a broad range of students, the research program forms the basis of a public outreach effort encouraging minority students outside of academic research centers to become involved in neuroscience research. This outreach program includes classroom demonstrations of neuroscience concepts at high schools and community colleges that serve underrepresented minority groups, organized tours for learning about research in the lab, and summer assistantships for students to gain research experience. Public lectures to the general community are engaging the public's interest in basic science and communicating how discoveries in neuroscience can influence many aspects of society, such as educational and clinical practices.