Investigating the neural and behavioural development of episodic memory and control

记忆对于人类的经历是极其重要的。除了让我们在精神上回到过去，重新生活在特定的事件中，记忆还从特定的事件中抽象出来，形成我们的一般知识。因此，我们的记忆系统必须同时代表我们经验中独特的方面，同时也强调它们的共同特征。从童年开始，这两种类型的记忆在我们的日常生活中发挥着重要作用，使我们能够回忆起个人的经历，并根据我们的知识做出新的决定。然而，几乎没有人知道发育中的大脑是如何支持从相互关联的记忆组成的复杂网络中形成、存储和访问选择信息的能力的。这项建议将建立在我之前在健康年轻人中的工作基础上，以填补我们理解中的这一关键空白。我之前已经证明，成熟的大脑在大脑记忆和控制系统的不同部分储存了两种“扭曲”的记忆--详细的（分化的）和基于记忆的（整合的）。在发展过程中，记忆的呈现和扭曲是否与成人相似？新出现的观点表明，情况可能并非如此。与现有的记忆在婴儿期成熟的观点相反，新的研究表明，大脑中的记忆和控制区域以及前额叶皮层实际上分别显示出长期的结构和功能发展，并持续到成年早期。由于海马体和前额叶皮层内特定解剖区域的发育以及它们的结构连接，我假设记忆将从生命早期的主要刚性和特定转变为灵活和普遍的，因为我们到达了年轻的成年。我提出了一系列的实验来测试这一理论在三条调查线：（1）如何记忆竞争解决通过分化或整合超过发展？(2)推理操作是如何受到分化和整合平衡的影响的，它们能预测学业成绩吗？（3）在婴儿期，记忆是否与形成记忆的环境紧密相连？拟议的工作将为一个新的机制框架提供经验支持，该框架将产生关于记忆行为如何在发展过程中出现和变化的新预测。通过使用神经科学的方法来建立大脑中的行为基础，我们可以开始考虑在发育的不同阶段，神经机制的差异如何与教育实践相关。最后，尖端的方法，中央拟议的研究将提供一个独特的培训经验的本科生和研究生学员支持本提案。通过这项工作获得的技能将使我的学员为学术界，教育界和工业界做出创新贡献。

Memory is profoundly important to the human experience. In addition to allowing us to mentally travel back in time to re-live specific episodes, memory also abstracts away from particular events to form our general knowledge. Accordingly, our memory system must simultaneously represent aspects of our experiences that are unique, while also highlighting their shared features. Beginning in childhood, both types of memory play an important role in our everyday lives by allowing us to recall individual experiences and make new decisions based on our knowledge, respectively. Yet, virtually nothing is known about how the developing brain supports the ability to form, store, and access select information from a complex web of interrelated memories. This proposal will build on my prior work in healthy young adults to fill this critical gap in our understanding. I have previously shown that the mature brain stores both kinds of “distorted” memoriesdetailed (differentiated) and gist-based (integrated)in separate parts of the brain's memory and control systems. Are memories representedand distortedsimilarly over development as they are in adults?Emerging perspectives suggest probably not. Contrary to existing ideas that memory matures in infancy, new research reveals that both the memory and control regions of the brainhippocampus and prefrontal cortex, respectivelyin fact show protracted structural and functional development that continues into young adulthood. Due to asynchrony in the development of specific anatomical regions within hippocampus and prefrontal cortex as well as their structural connections, I hypothesize that memories will shift from being primarily rigid and specific early in life to flexible and generalized as we reach young adulthood. I propose a series of experiments to test this theory in three lines of inquiry: (1) how is memory competition resolved via differentiation or integration over development?; (2) how are reasoning operations impacted by the balance of differentiation and integration, and do they predict academic achievement?; and (3) in infancy, are memories rigidly bound to the context in which they were formed? The proposed work will provide empirical support for a novel mechanistic framework that will generate new predictions about how memory behaviours emerge and change across development. By grounding behaviour in the brain through the use of neuroscience approaches, we can begin to consider how differences in the neural machinery available at different points in development are relevant to educational practice. Finally, the cutting-edge methods central to the proposed research will provide a unique training experience for the undergraduate and graduate trainees supported by this proposal. Skills gained through this work will prepare my trainees to make innovative contributions to academia, education, and industry.