How old knowledge begets new knowledge: strategic regulation of neocortical knowledge modules and learning-induced neocortical plasticity

认知心理学和教育心理学很早就认识到先前知识对新知识编码和提取的影响作用，尤其关注概念知识和图式的作用。图式只是最近才引起动物和人类神经生物学文献的兴趣，而更多的是关于范畴的认知神经科学。在目前的研究计划中，我将建立在记忆领域中关于图式神经生物学的最新和令人兴奋的发现的基础上。重要的是，我们的研究计划旨在阐明术语图式的使用，并描述其与其他相关术语的关系-最著名的概念，但也包括脚本、要点、提取的概率等。在这些研究中，我们依赖于神经损伤(虚构和健忘)和神经成像(功能磁共振、脑磁图和事件相关电位)患者的数据。在神经解剖学上，我们提出了同样的原理，即将孤立的神经模块结合在一起形成多模式集成，以前颞叶(ATL)为枢纽的概念性知识，以腹内侧前额叶(VmPFC)为枢纽的图式。通过海马-vmPFC与后部新皮质的相互作用，可以促进先前模式对新信息的编码。VmPFC通过“模式实例化”来支持与模式相关的存储功能：偏向并积极维护作为信息同化脚手架的在线上下文相关模式。使用ERP‘s和MEG，我们将测试当患者和对照组执行图式实例化任务时，vmPFC和外侧后部新皮质结构之间的皮质-皮质相互作用。我们预计，健康对照的成功表现将取决于主要在theta范围内的频率一致性，而这些将在患者中缺失。我们将把这些信号与类似的概念性知识任务(即哺乳动物或节肢动物等类别)得出的信号进行比较。我们期望发现，ATL不是vmPFC，而是对后部新皮质活动起协调作用。我们还将继续研究概念性知识如何支持直接的新皮质学习。我们以前已经证明，ATL是学习新的标签-图片联系的关键，独立于海马体。其他人跟随我们的脚步，证实了我们的预测，即这种学习依赖于在编码新的联想过程中相关语义的激活；这可能导致新皮质网络的激活，这一网络活动使其能够修改和整合新的信息。使用脑磁图和我们开发的贝叶斯模型，我们计划调查新皮质活动促进新皮质水平的概念学习的方式，以及这种学习的边界。

Cognitive and educational psychology have long identified the influential role of prior knowledge on encoding and retrieval of new knowledge, with particular focus on the roles of conceptual knowledge and schemas. Schemas have only recently generated interest in both the animal and human neurobiological literature, whereas more is known about the cognitive neuroscience of categories. In the present research program I will build on recent and exciting findings on the neurobiology of schemas in the memory domain. Importantly our research program is geared towards elucidating the use of the term schema and delineating its relationship to other related terms- most notably concepts, but also scripts, gist, extracted probabilities and so forth. In these studies we rely on data from patients with neurological damage (confabulation and amnesia), and neuroimaging (fMRI, MEG and ERP's). Neuroanatomically, we propose that the same principle of representational hubs that bind together isolated neural modules into multi-modal ensembles operate for conceptual knowledge, with the anterior temporal lobe (ATL) as the hub, and for schemas, with the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC) as hub. Facilitation of encoding of new information by prior schemas can be mediated by hippocampal-vmPFC interaction with posterior neocortex. The vmPFC supports schema-related memory functions by “schema instantiation”: biasing and actively maintaining online contextually relevant schemas that serve as scaffold for information assimilation. Using ERP's and MEG we will test cortico-cortical interactions between vmPFC and lateral posterior neocortical structures when patients and controls perform schema instantiation tasks. We expect that healthy controls' successful performance would depend on frequency coherence primarily in the theta range and that these will be missing in patients. We will compare these signals to the ones derived from analogous conceptual knowledge tasks (i.e. categories such as mammals or arthropods). We expect to find that rather than vmPFC, the ATL would play a coordinating role for posterior neocortical activity. We will also continue our investigations of how conceptual knowledge may support direct neocortical learning. We have previously demonstrated that the ATL is key for learning novel label-picture associations, independently of the hippocampus. Others who followed our lead, confirming our prediction that this learning depends on activation of related semantics during encoding of the novel associations; this presumably leads to activation of neocortical networks and this network activity enables its modification and integration of novel information. Using MEG and a Bayesian model which we developed we plan to investigate the manner in which neocortical activity facilitates conceptual learning at the neocortical level, as well as the boundaries of such learning