Unravelling the circuit changes mediating the development of episodic memory

与其他形式的记忆相比，人类的情景记忆在青少年发育期间出现得相对较晚，并且在正常衰老以及神经发育和神经退行性疾病中特别容易受到破坏。我们最近发现，与非情景记忆任务相比，大鼠在情节样物体-地点-上下文（OPC）识别任务中表现记忆的能力也出现在幼年发育的后期。博士项目的目的是确定调节情景记忆后期出现的回路变化。众所周知，OPC任务依赖于海马体、外侧内嗅皮层和内侧前额皮质的完整性。在这个博士项目中，学生将利用行为学和体内电生理记录技术的结合来描述这个回路的关键变化，这些变化介导了幼年大鼠情景记忆的出现。项目的第二部分将使用“反向翻译”方法，即学生将使用一个模仿老鼠研究中使用的OPC任务的行为任务来测试不同年龄的儿童，以确定情景记忆能力是如何发展的。使用这种方法将使我们能够更密切地了解在大鼠身上的发现与儿童情景记忆能力的发展之间的关系，从而在未来进行更多的转化研究。

Episodic memory in humans emerges relatively late during juvenile development in comparison to other forms of memory, and is particularly vulnerable to disruption in normal ageing, as well as in neurodevelopmental and neurodegenerative diseases. We have recently found that the ability of rats to show memory in an episodic-like object-place-context (OPC) recognition task also emerges late in juvenile development compared to non-episodic memory tasks. The aim of the PhD project is to identify the circuit changes that mediate the late emergence of episodic memory. The OPC task is known to depend on the integrity of the hippocampus, as well as the lateral entorhinal cortex and medial prefrontal cortex. In this PhD project the student will utilise a combination of behavioural and in vivo electrophysiological recording techniques to characterise the key changes in this circuitry that mediate the emergence of episodic memory in juvenile rats. A second part of the project will be to use a "reverse translation" approach whereby the student will use a behavioural task that has been designed to mimic the OPC task used in the rat studies, to test children of different ages to determine how episodic memory ability develops. Using this approach will enable us to understand more closely how the findings in rats relate to the development of episodic memory abilities in children, allowing for more translational research in the future.