Cortical-Hippocampal Interactions Underlying Rapid Spatial and Non-Spatial Category Learning

拟议研究的总结和相关性 人类和其他先进的动物有一个显着的能力，迅速获得知识， 我们的环境和学习各种复杂的任务。最近的研究表明， “图式”在概括从简单的任务和概念中学到的知识，允许快速学习新的 任务和知识建立在早期学习集提供的认知支架上。例如，学习a 简单的纸牌游戏，如“战争”或“老处女”，有助于学习更复杂的游戏，如“黑桃”， “桥”，建立在知识或模式从简单的游戏。虽然神经生理学研究 复杂行为和学习过程中的大脑皮层相互作用已经被广泛地进行了研究， 啮齿类动物，有一个令人惊讶的缺乏知识的模式，海马神经元活动或皮质， 海马体的相互作用是人类快速学习和心理图式发展的基础， 其他高级动物该项目将利用一种新的大规模半慢性 神经生理学的方法来了解海马，顶叶皮层， 前额叶皮层，它是图式发展和快速视觉图式使用的基础。 联想和抽象类别学习。 虽然我们对大脑如何处理简单的感官特征（如颜色， 方向和运动方向），对大脑如何学习和表示意义的了解较少，或者 类别，刺激，以及分类知识是如何推广到学习新的任务和概念。更大 对学习和分类的理解对于解决许多脑疾病，病症， 和精神疾病（如中风、阿尔茨海默病、注意力缺陷障碍、精神分裂症和中风） 使患者在需要视觉学习、识别和/或评估的日常任务中受损， 对感官信息做出适当的反应这个项目的长期目标是指导下一个 通过帮助开发详细的治疗方法， 了解学习、记忆和决策的大脑机制。这些研究 也与理解和解决学习障碍有关，如注意力缺陷障碍 和诵读困难，这影响了相当一部分学龄儿童和年轻人。因此，更详细的 了解学习和注意力的基本大脑机制可能会给我们提供重要的 深入了解涉及这些认知能力的疾病的原因和潜在的治疗方法。

Summary and Relevance of Proposed Research Humans and other advanced animals have a remarkable capacity to rapidly acquire knowledge about our environment and to learn a wide array of complex tasks. Recent work has shown the importance of mental “schema” in generalizing knowledge learned from simpler tasks and concepts, allowing rapid learning of new tasks and knowledge built upon the cognitive scaffold provided by earlier learning sets. For example, learning a simple card game like “war” or “old maid” facilitates learning of more complex games such as “spades” or “bridge”, which build on knowledge or schema from simpler games. Although neurophysiological studies of hippocampal-cortical interactions during complex behavior and learning have been conducted extensively in rodents, there is a surprising lack of knowledge about the patterns of hippocampal neuronal activity or cortical- hippocampal interactions which underlie rapid learning and the development of mental schema in humans and other advanced animals. This project will take advantage of a newly available large-scale semi-chronic neurophysiological approach to understand the interactions between hippocampus, parietal cortex, and prefrontal cortex, which underlie both the development of schema and use of schema for rapid visual associative and abstract category learning. While much is known about how the brain processes simple sensory features (such as color, orientation, and direction of motion), less is known about how the brain learns and represents the meaning, or category, of stimuli, and how categorical knowledge is generalized to learn new tasks and concepts. A greater understanding of learning and categorization is critical for addressing a number of brain diseases, conditions, and mental illnesses (e.g. stroke, Alzheimer’s disease, attention deficit disorder, schizophrenia, and stroke) that leave patients impaired in everyday tasks that require visual learning, recognition and/or evaluating and responding appropriately to sensory information. The long-term goal of this project is to guide the next generation of treatments for these brain-based diseases and disorders by helping to develop a detailed understanding of the brain mechanisms that underlie learning, memory and decision making. These studies also have relevance for understanding and addressing learning disabilities, such as attention deficit disorder and dyslexia, which affect a substantial fraction of school age children and young adults. Thus, a more detailed understanding of the basic brain mechanisms underlying learning and attention will likely give important insights into the causes and potential treatments for disorders involving these cognitive faculties.