Enhanced communication during brain imaging of children and older adults: Cognitive neuroscience of memory across the lifespan

记忆是生命早期的一项关键能力，它让我们了解世界的新事物。它在整个生命周期中都很重要，即使在健康的老年人中也会出现下降。大脑成像的最新进展使我们能够开始询问记忆在我们一生中变化的微妙方式。我们提出的研究将描述与年龄相关的大脑如何形成、修改和获取我们的记忆的变化。其中一个研究项目将探讨，在老年人中，从一段经历中提取记忆的简单行为是否会优先考虑在睡眠期间发生的特殊记忆处理过程中对其进行强化。第二个研究项目将评估从经验中提取的内容的发展差异是否始于对正在进行的经验的原始感知，儿童可能会将他们的经验分割成比成人更细粒度的子事件。第三项研究将询问，提取记忆是否会影响存储的内容，因为大脑成熟度的差异决定了记忆内容的转换方式。我们的工作需要能够在参与者沉浸在磁共振成像（MRI）扫描仪的嘈杂环境中时，用声音向他们呈现迷人的、复杂的、真实世界的刺激。此外，最重要的是，我们最年轻和最年长的志愿者都能在核磁共振成像中感到安全、舒适和放心。为了完成这项研究，我们需要一种双向MRI通信系统，既可以在MRI中向志愿者传递声音刺激，也可以让志愿者随时与研究人员交谈。该系统是世界上唯一一个为耳机和麦克风提供主动降噪的系统，该系统是根据MRI扫描仪独特的声音配置文件定制的；它还将通过其低调的设计提高参与者的身体舒适度。这些研究项目，通过所要求的设备，将帮助我们了解人类记忆的神经基础是如何随着寿命的变化而变化的。人类记忆对学习至关重要，也是我们作为人类身份的核心。

Memory is a key ability in early life, allowing us to learn new things about our world. It remains important throughout the lifespan, and shows declines even in healthy aging. Recent advances in brain imaging have allowed us to start asking questions about the subtle ways in which memory changes across our lives. Our proposed research will characterize age-related changes in how the brain forms, modifies, and accesses our memories. One program of research will ask whether in older adults, the simple act of retrieving a memory from an experience prioritizes it to be enhanced during the special memory processing that occurs during sleep. A second research program will assess whether developmental differences in what gets extracted from an experience begins during the original perception of the ongoing experience, with children potentially segmenting their experience into finer-grained sub-events than adults. A third study will ask whether retrieving a memory impacts what is stored, with differences in the maturity of the brain dictating how its contents get transformed. Our work requires the ability to present engaging, complex, real-world stimuli with sound to participants while they are immersed in the noisy environment of a magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scanner. Moreover, it is of utmost importance that our youngest and oldest volunteers alike feel safe, comfortable, and reassured in the MRI. To accomplish this research, we are requesting a two-way MRI communication system that allows for both the delivery of sound stimuli to volunteers in the MRI, as well as for the volunteers to speak back to the researchers at any time. This system is the only one in the world to provide active noise cancellation for both headphones and microphone that is custom to the unique sound profile of the MRI scanner; it will also enhance participants' physical comfort with its low-profile design. These programs of research, made possible by the requested equipment, will help us understand how the neural basis of human memoryessential for learning and central to our identities as humanschanges over the lifespan.