H2020Индивидуална стипендия2015–2017

VisHipMem · At first glance: How saccades drive communication between the visual system and the hippocampus during memory formation

„Хоризонт 2020“ — Действия „Мария Склодовска-Кюри“

Период: 2015-05-01 → 2017-04-30
Финансиране от ЕС: 165 599 €
Участници: 1
Схема: MSCA-IF-EF-ST

Линиите свързват координатора с партньорите.

Накратко на български

Движенията на очите и мозъчната активност се проучват, за да се разбере как визуалната информация достига до хипокампуса при запомняне. Това помага да се разбере как мозъкът координира зрението и паметта по време на естествено наблюдение на средата.

Този кратък обзор е генериран от изкуствен интелект

Кратко обяснение, генерирано от езиков модел по текста на CORDIS. Оригиналът е по-долу.

Резултати накратко

At first glance: How saccades drive communication between the visual system and the hippocampus during memory formation

We constantly move our eyes to gather information about our visual environment. Thereby, the uptake of visual information is restricted to discrete periods during which we fixate. Additionally, information sampling is restricted by ongoing brain processes. Rhythmic fluctuations in neuronal activity define brain states during which information processing is favorable. In order to be encoded into memory, information has to flow from sensory areas to memory related areas. To make the encoding of visual information into memory efficient, our eye movements need to be coordinated with the brain dynamics underlying the communication between brain areas. The project’s aim is to understand how eye movements and brain activity are coordinated, to enable efficient memory encoding of visual information. We investigated this by simultaneously recording brain activity and eye movements from participants performing a memory task. Experiment 1 provided evidence for the memory-related coordination of brain oscillations and eye movements, indicating a mechanistic role of brain oscillations in coordinating the encoding of visual information during natural viewing. Experiment 2 revealed the impact of eye movements on brain metabolism in the hippocampus in relation to memory formation, as well as on the communication between task-relevant brain areas. Together, the findings answer basic questions about the interplay between eye movements and brain activity during memory formation. The results of the project close a gap in understanding how visual information is processed during natural viewing and how information is transferred in the brain from the visual to the memory domain. Crucially, they provide insight into how these processes affect memory formation. Human memory is a topic of major public interest due to its core function in the human mind. Demographic change and aging, intimately related to the complex of dementia and Alzheimer’s disease, are one of the biggest challenges to today’s society. The findings of the present project advance the comprehension of the biological foundations of human memory, by investigating the neuronal basis of information processing and memory formation.

Текст от CORDIS, на английски · Данни: CORDIS, © Европейски съюз

Цел на проекта

Information processing in the human brain depends on the exact timing of neuronal activity. Duty cycles, defining favorable states of activity within the phase of a neuronal oscillation, have been shown to coordinate information processing in the visual domain (Jensen & Mazaheri, 2010) and the formation of new memories (Buzsaki, 2010). While there is little doubt about the interaction between these two domains, the underlying mechanisms are as of yet unclear. The aim of the present proposal is to understand the mechanisms supporting human memory formation by investigating the joint inter-regional coordination of visual and memory-related brain regions. Recent evidence suggests that saccadic eye movements modulate hippocampal oscillations in non-human primates during memory formation (Jutras et al., 2013) and also influence the phase of visual oscillations (Ito et al., 2011; 2013). It is hypothesized that the coordination of these brain areas during information transfer can be unraveled by incorporating saccadic eye movements adjusting the phase of visual and hippocampal oscillations. In particular, it is hypothesized that neuronal oscillations following saccades are instrumental to synchronize visual cortex and hippocampus activity such that visual information is successfully encoded. Oscillatory synchronization in the 5-12 Hz theta/alpha band is expected to establish the ‘functional connectivity’ between the visuo-hippocampal regions, whereas gamma band activity (30-100 Hz), phase-locked to the theta/alpha oscillations reflects the actual information transfer (Lisman & Jensen, 2013; Jensen et al., 2014). The aim of this research plan is to test these hypotheses directly by using a combination of neuromagnetic (MEG), neuroimaging (fMRI) and behavioral (eye tracker) recordings in a memory paradigm.

Оригинален текст от CORDIS (на английски).

Участници

STICHTING RADBOUD UNIVERSITEIT · NijmegenКоординаторНидерландия