NEUROPSYCHOLOGICAL INVESTIGATIONS OF PFC-MTL INTERACTIONS IN HUMANS

该项目结合了神经心理学，神经影像学和眼动追踪方法，以研究PFC和海马在支持人类丰富条件行为中的功能相互作用。实验验证了我们的假设，海马是至关重要的参与关系记忆表征，而PFC参与更抽象的上下文引导的关联规则。 神经心理学研究将提供有关PFC和MTL区域在关系记忆和情境依赖性关联中的必要性的证据，神经影像学研究将提供有关这些区域之间功能相互作用的性质和时间的证据。对于每项研究，表现评估不仅包括明确的行为判断，还包括基于眼球运动的评估 这是我们实验室的首创。这种方法提供了敏感的，隐式的nr>措施的强度的关系和上下文相关的表示，基于优先的观看模式，因为它们动态变化，在每个试验期间，并在学习和保留。实验从与该中心所有其他经验项目相同的“基础”任务开始，然后逐渐发展到更复杂的变体，这些变体系统地操纵关系信息的数量和复杂性或要学习的上下文相关关联规则的复杂性和抽象性，以便更好地确定记忆的每个方面对PFC，海马体及其功能相互作用的依赖性，以及它们相互作用的方向性。

This project combines neuropsychological, neuroimaging, and eye tracking approaches in order to study the functional interactions of PFC and the hippocampus in supporting richly conditional behavior in humans. The experiments test our hypothesis that the hippocampus is critically involved in relational memory representations whereas PFC is involved in more abstract context-guided associative rules. Neuropsychological studies will provide evidence about the necessity of PFC and MTL regions in relational memory and context-dependent associations, and neuroimaging studies will provide evidence about the nature and timing of functional interactions between these regions. For each study, performance assessments will include not only explicit behavioral judgments but also eye movement-based assessment of memory, pioneered in our laboratory. This approach affords sensitive, implicit nr>easures of the strength of relational and context-dependent representations, based on preferential viewing patterns, as they change dynamically during each trial and across learning and retention. Experiments start with a "base" task in common with all the other empirical projects of the Center, and then graduate to more elaborate variants that systematically manipulate the amount and complexity of relational information or the complexity and abstractness of the context-dependent associative rules to be learned, in order to better determine the dependency of each of these aspects of memory on PFC, hippocampus, and their functional interactions, and further, on the directionality of their interactions.