H2020Индивидуална стипендия2019–2021

BrownianReactivation · Neural stochasticity and criticality in memory replay

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

Период: 2019-11-01 → 2021-10-31
Финансиране от ЕС: 175 572 €
Участници: 1
Схема: MSCA-IF-EF-ST

Линиите свързват координатора с партньорите.

Накратко на български

Взаимодействието между хипокампуса и кората на мозъка при превръщането на кратки спомени в дълготрайни се анализира чрез математически модели и данни. Разбирането на тези процеси помага при работата с нарушения в паметта, обучението и невродегенеративните заболявания.

Този кратък обзор е генериран от изкуствен интелект

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

Резултати накратко

Neural stochasticity and criticality in memory replay

Our main goal is to elucidate the role of the dynamical state of cortical neural networks in facilitating memory consolidation. Such process is central to integrating novel information into existing knowledge and to the ability to generalize from single experiences. It is now accepted that in the brain the interplay between hippocampus and neo-cortex is central to system consolidation. The two structures are generally assigned with complementary roles, with the hippocampus in charge of short-term and episodic memories and the cortex of long-term memories with more pronounced semantic nature. Nevertheless, very little is known about the details and the modalities of this interaction and about the principles governing such reorganization of information. In this project we aim at investigating whether activity propagation in cortical networks has properties which are particularly well suited to create long-range interactions across a large number of networks with heterogeneous functions and specializations. Such property would be functional to integrate complex, detail-rich novel experiences. In particular we ask whether such large-scale recruitment of specialized cortical networks happens in coincidence with peaks in the activity of the hippocampus, a region known to be central in the formation of novel memory and in supporting future planning. We thus investigated this interaction between the content of hippocampal activations both during wakefulness and sleep and that of cortical avalanches, using a combination of data analysis and mathematical modelling. While furthering our understanding of memory processes can be of great importance in addressing memory and learning impairments and neurodegenerative disorders in humans, this study also holds close ties with the fast-expanding field of Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning. In fact, the functioning of the brain has been the main source of inspiration for the development of modern information processing systems. Modern challenges to Artificial Intelligence, mostly cantered on its ability to generalize and to extract regularities from the world without any form of supervision, are closely related to the open issues we are addressing here in the context of a biological information processing system as the central nervous system. By unveiling evolution-driven solutions adopted by the brain, our research has thus also the potential to provide novel directions in the field of artificial neural networks.

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

Цел на проекта

Memories are not stored in a stable manner in the brain. Instead they undergo an almost constant process of transformation and reorganization from the very moment of their formation. This phenomenon, going under the name of memory consolidation is also at the core of fundamental changes in the nature of the information carried by the neural representations. In fact, the switch from hippocampal-based short-term memories to cortex-based long-term memories also coincides with the transitions from episodic to semantic memories. In this proposal, we aim at investigating the role played in memory consolidation by stochasticity and criticality of neural dynamics. We will develop a quantitative approach to this question by combining statistical analysis of newly recorded data, with mathematical modelling of the cortical-hippocampal interaction. Our hypothesis takes the emergence of long-range correlation as the central mechanism characterizing semantic memory formation. We propose that cortical neural circuits poised at criticality can exploit activity avalanches associated with this state to induce the collective activation of large portions of the brain necessary to reconstruct the complete input statistics. Using a hierarchical neural network trained with an input of random samplings of the episodic representations stored in the hippocampus, we will explore the interaction between the performance of the network and its closeness to a critical state. We will complement this work with an analysis of the presence of criticality in the cortical cell assemblies formed after learning a complex behavioural task. We expect these cell assemblies to show maximal contribution to the propagation of neural avalanches and to present consistent coordination with the hippocampal activity. We intend to integrate these results in a coherent theory of long-term memory formation, explaining the ability to generalize starting from event-based experiences.

Оригинален текст от CORDIS (на английски).

Участници

STICHTING RADBOUD UNIVERSITEIT · NijmegenКоординаторНидерландия