Understanding the hippocampal-perirhinal-prefrontal tripartite circuit in associative memory

视觉识别记忆是知道我们看到的东西是新的还是熟悉的。这是一种被认为是理所当然的记忆形式，但它对我们所有正常的日常活动都是必不可少的。这种记忆的衰退可能是毁灭性的，就像痴呆症包括阿尔茨海默氏病一样。识别记忆依赖于整合来自几个不同大脑区域的信息，包括海马体、嗅周皮层和前额叶皮层。虽然我们对海马体和嗅周皮层如何处理识别记忆所必需的信息了解很多，但对前额叶皮层的作用却知之甚少。我们提出的工作将回答有关大脑这三个区域之间的信息如何整合以及不同区域如何对识别记忆的不同方面做出贡献的问题。乙酰胆碱是一种重要的化学递质，对记忆很重要。已知这种递质的水平在痴呆症中会下降。然而，人们对乙酰胆碱如何影响参与识别记忆的三个大脑区域之间的信息流知之甚少。这个提议中的实验将调查这个问题，从而增加我们对这个重要的递质的功能的理解。总的来说，这个提议将增加关于三个不同的大脑区域如何协同工作以产生一种对正常日常生活至关重要的学习类型的知识。

Visual recognition memory is knowing whether something that we see is new or whether it is familiar. This is a form of memory that is taken for granted but it is essential for all our normal daily activities. Decline of such memory can be devastating, as occurs in dementias including in Alzheimer's disease. Recognition memory relies on the integration of information from several different brain regions including the hippocampus, perirhinal cortex and the prefrontal cortex. While a lot is known about how the hippocampus and the perirhinal cortex process information essential for recognition memory very little is known about the role of the prefrontal cortex. The work that we propose will answer questions about how the information between these three regions of the brain is integrated and how the different regions contribute to different aspects of recognition memory. An important chemical transmitter that is known to be important for memory is acetylcholine. Levels of this transmitter are known to decline in dementia. However, there is very little known about how acetylcholine affects the information flow between the three brain regions involved in recognition memory. Experiments in this proposal will investigate this question and therefore increase our understanding of the functions of this important transmitter.Overall, this proposal will increase knowledge about how three different brain regions work together to produce a type of learning that is essential for normal every-day life.