MEMENTO · MEMory processing in the human ENTOrhinal cortex

MEMory processing in the human ENTOrhinal cortex

MEMENTO stands for “MEMory processing in the human ENTOrhinal cortex”. The entorhinal cortex is a brain region which is highly important for episodic memory: The vivid, detailed memory for events and experiences. In fact, a large part of the information that we encode into, or retrieve from, episodic memory is channelled through the entorhinal cortex, linking high-level perceptual and memory-specific brain regions. The entorhinal cortex is also one of the first brain regions affected in Alzheimer’s disease, emphasising its significance for memory. A clear understanding of entorhinal cortex function is therefore invaluable for understanding dementia. Much of our knowledge of how the healthy human brain works has been discovered using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). However, due to its small size and location, detecting brain activity in the entorhinal cortex is challenging. Only recent advances in high-resolution and ultra-high field fMRI (at 7 Tesla rather than the common 3 Tesla) have started to illuminate its functional properties. We now know that the entorhinal cortex consists of subregions supporting different aspects of memory. The content of memory matters, with objects and scenes processed in different entorhinal cortex subregions (i.e. anterolateral and posteriormedial). On an even smaller scale, the cortex can be divided into cortical layers that differ with regard to their cellular makeup and connectivity. Ultra-high field fMRI with sub-millimetre resolution has shown that superficial and deep layers of the entorhinal cortex are active during different stages of memory. Previous research has provided significant puzzle pieces for understanding the function of this brain region. MEMENTO aimed at bringing these together by providing a thorough investigation of memory processing in the entorhinal cortex on four levels - from smallest to largest: 1) The level of cortical layers, 2) the subregion level, 3) the systems level (i.e. interactions with other brain regions), and 4) the behavioural level. We investigated memory for different content (i.e. objects, scenes) and during different memory stages (encoding, retrieval, consolidation), using state-of-the-art ultra-high field fMRI at 7T and advanced data analysis protocols.

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