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1.
Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A ; 119(26): e2204172119, 2022 06 28.
Artículo en Inglés | MEDLINE | ID: mdl-35737844

RESUMEN

The influence of prior knowledge on memory is ubiquitous, making the specific mechanisms of this relationship difficult to disentangle. Here, we show that expert knowledge produces a fundamental shift in the way that interitem similarity (i.e., the perceived resemblance between items in a set) biases episodic recognition. Within a group of expert birdwatchers and matched controls, we characterized the psychological similarity space for a set of well-known local species and a set of less familiar, nonlocal species. In experts, interitem similarity was influenced most strongly by taxonomic features, whereas in controls, similarity judgments reflected bird color. In controls, perceived episodic oldness during a recognition memory task increased along with measures of global similarity between items, consistent with classic models of episodic recognition. Surprisingly, for experts, high global similarity did not drive oldness signals. Instead, for local birds memory tracked the availability of species-level name knowledge, whereas for nonlocal birds, it was mediated by the organization of generalized conceptual space. These findings demonstrate that episodic memory in experts can benefit from detailed subcategory knowledge, or, lacking that, from the overall relational structure of concepts. Expertise reshapes psychological similarity space, helping to resolve mnemonic separation challenges arising from high interitem overlap. Thus, even in the absence of knowledge about item-specific details or labels, the presence of generalized knowledge appears to support episodic recognition in domains of expertise by altering the typical relationship between psychological similarity and memory.


Asunto(s)
Conocimiento , Memoria Episódica , Animales , Humanos , Juicio , Reconocimiento en Psicología
2.
J Cogn Neurosci ; 36(7): 1325-1340, 2024 Jun 01.
Artículo en Inglés | MEDLINE | ID: mdl-38683698

RESUMEN

The assessment of mental effort is increasingly relevant in neurocognitive and life span domains. Pupillometry, the measure of the pupil size, is often used to assess effort but has disadvantages. Analysis of eye movements may provide an alternative, but research has been limited to easy and difficult task demands in younger adults. An effort measure must be sensitive to the whole effort profile, including "giving up" effort investment, and capture effort in different age groups. The current study comprised three experiments in which younger (n = 66) and older (n = 44) adults listened to speech masked by background babble at different signal-to-noise ratios associated with easy, difficult, and impossible speech comprehension. We expected individuals to invest little effort for easy and impossible speech (giving up) but to exert effort for difficult speech. Indeed, pupil size was largest for difficult but lower for easy and impossible speech. In contrast, gaze dispersion decreased with increasing speech masking in both age groups. Critically, gaze dispersion during difficult speech returned to levels similar to easy speech after sentence offset, when acoustic stimulation was similar across conditions, whereas gaze dispersion during impossible speech continued to be reduced. These findings show that a reduction in eye movements is not a byproduct of acoustic factors, but instead suggest that neurocognitive processes, different from arousal-related systems regulating the pupil size, drive reduced eye movements during high task demands. The current data thus show that effort in one sensory domain (audition) differentially impacts distinct functional properties in another sensory domain (vision).


Asunto(s)
Envejecimiento , Movimientos Oculares , Pupila , Percepción del Habla , Humanos , Pupila/fisiología , Masculino , Femenino , Adulto Joven , Anciano , Adulto , Percepción del Habla/fisiología , Envejecimiento/fisiología , Movimientos Oculares/fisiología , Persona de Mediana Edad , Enmascaramiento Perceptual/fisiología , Estimulación Acústica
3.
Hippocampus ; 34(4): 197-203, 2024 Apr.
Artículo en Inglés | MEDLINE | ID: mdl-38189156

RESUMEN

Tau pathology accumulates in the perirhinal cortex (PRC) of the medial temporal lobe (MTL) during the earliest stages of the Alzheimer's disease (AD), appearing decades before clinical diagnosis. Here, we leveraged perceptual discrimination tasks that target PRC function to detect subtle cognitive impairment even in nominally healthy older adults. Older adults who did not have a clinical diagnosis or subjective memory complaints were categorized into "at-risk" (score <26; n = 15) and "healthy" (score ≥26; n = 23) groups based on their performance on the Montreal Cognitive Assessment. The task included two conditions known to recruit the PRC: faces and complex objects (greebles). A scene condition, known to recruit the hippocampus, and a size control condition that does not rely on the MTL were also included. Individuals in the at-risk group were less accurate than those in the healthy group for discriminating greebles. Performance on either the face or size control condition did not predict group status above and beyond that of the greeble condition. Visual discrimination tasks that are sensitive to PRC function may detect early cognitive decline associated with AD.


Asunto(s)
Enfermedad de Alzheimer , Disfunción Cognitiva , Humanos , Anciano , Lóbulo Temporal/patología , Hipocampo , Percepción Visual , Discriminación en Psicología , Enfermedad de Alzheimer/patología , Imagen por Resonancia Magnética , Disfunción Cognitiva/patología
4.
Cogn Neuropsychiatry ; 28(1): 67-84, 2023 01.
Artículo en Inglés | MEDLINE | ID: mdl-36464633

RESUMEN

INTRODUCTION: The Transverse Patterning (TP) task has been used to measure episodic relational memory (RM) deficits in clinical populations. Individuals with schizophrenia often fail to learn TP with standard, and sometimes extensive training. Identifying the differences between TP learners and non-learners can improve our understanding of successful TP performance and its underlying mechanisms, which may help improve interventions aimed at ameliorating RM performance. We investigated sociodemographic, clinical and neuropsychological factors associated with TP performance in schizophrenia. METHODS: Sixty-six participants with schizophrenia completed a semantically rich and a relational-binding dependent version of the TP task and reported on their task awareness and strategy use. RESULTS: Twenty-six participants failed to learn the task rules after extensive training. Learners had superior verbal, visual and working memory, executive functions and overall cognitive functioning compared to non-learners. Learners also had superior awareness of task rules and pairs relationships and used elaborated cognitive strategies more often. CONCLUSIONS: Our results support previous findings that some individuals with schizophrenia show RM impairment even with extensive TP training. We shed light on neuropsychological and metacognitive factors associated with TP performance. This knowledge could enhance interventions targeted to improve relational memory in schizophrenia when extensive training fails.


Asunto(s)
Esquizofrenia , Humanos , Esquizofrenia/complicaciones , Cognición , Función Ejecutiva , Memoria a Corto Plazo , Aprendizaje , Trastornos de la Memoria , Pruebas Neuropsicológicas
5.
Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A ; 117(11): 6246-6254, 2020 03 17.
Artículo en Inglés | MEDLINE | ID: mdl-32123109

RESUMEN

The ability to recall a detailed event from a simple reminder is supported by pattern completion, a cognitive operation performed by the hippocampus wherein existing mnemonic representations are retrieved from incomplete input. In behavioral studies, pattern completion is often inferred through the false endorsement of lure (i.e., similar) items as old. However, evidence that such a response is due to the specific retrieval of a similar, previously encoded item is severely lacking. We used eye movement (EM) monitoring during a partial-cue recognition memory task to index reinstatement of lure images behaviorally via the recapitulation of encoding-related EMs or gaze reinstatement. Participants reinstated encoding-related EMs following degraded retrieval cues and this reinstatement was negatively correlated with accuracy for lure images, suggesting that retrieval of existing representations (i.e., pattern completion) underlies lure false alarms. Our findings provide evidence linking gaze reinstatement and pattern completion and advance a functional role for EMs in memory retrieval.


Asunto(s)
Movimientos Oculares/fisiología , Recuerdo Mental/fisiología , Reconocimiento en Psicología/fisiología , Adulto , Señales (Psicología) , Medidas del Movimiento Ocular , Femenino , Humanos , Masculino , Estimulación Luminosa , Adulto Joven
6.
J Cogn Neurosci ; 34(9): 1547-1562, 2022 08 01.
Artículo en Inglés | MEDLINE | ID: mdl-34272959

RESUMEN

Mounting evidence linking gaze reinstatement-the recapitulation of encoding-related gaze patterns during retrieval-to behavioral measures of memory suggests that eye movements play an important role in mnemonic processing. Yet, the nature of the gaze scanpath, including its informational content and neural correlates, has remained in question. In this study, we examined eye movement and neural data from a recognition memory task to further elucidate the behavioral and neural bases of functional gaze reinstatement. Consistent with previous work, gaze reinstatement during retrieval of freely viewed scene images was greater than chance and predictive of recognition memory performance. Gaze reinstatement was also associated with viewing of informationally salient image regions at encoding, suggesting that scanpaths may encode and contain high-level scene content. At the brain level, gaze reinstatement was predicted by encoding-related activity in the occipital pole and BG, neural regions associated with visual processing and oculomotor control. Finally, cross-voxel brain pattern similarity analysis revealed overlapping subsequent memory and subsequent gaze reinstatement modulation effects in the parahippocampal place area and hippocampus, in addition to the occipital pole and BG. Together, these findings suggest that encoding-related activity in brain regions associated with scene processing, oculomotor control, and memory supports the formation, and subsequent recapitulation, of functional scanpaths. More broadly, these findings lend support to Scanpath Theory's assertion that eye movements both encode, and are themselves embedded in, mnemonic representations.


Asunto(s)
Memoria , Reconocimiento en Psicología , Mapeo Encefálico , Movimientos Oculares , Hipocampo , Humanos , Imagen por Resonancia Magnética , Recuerdo Mental
7.
Neuroimage ; 260: 119497, 2022 10 15.
Artículo en Inglés | MEDLINE | ID: mdl-35870699

RESUMEN

Scene construction is a key component of memory recall, navigation, and future imagining, and relies on the medial temporal lobes (MTL). A parallel body of work suggests that eye movements may enable the imagination and construction of scenes, even in the absence of external visual input. There are vast structural and functional connections between regions of the MTL and those of the oculomotor system. However, the directionality of connections between the MTL and oculomotor control regions, and how it relates to scene construction, has not been studied directly in human neuroimaging. In the current study, we used dynamic causal modeling (DCM) to interrogate effective connectivity between the MTL and oculomotor regions using a scene construction task in which participants' eye movements were either restricted (fixed-viewing) or unrestricted (free-viewing). By omitting external visual input, and by contrasting free- versus fixed- viewing, the directionality of neural connectivity during scene construction could be determined. As opposed to when eye movements were restricted, allowing free-viewing during construction of scenes strengthened top-down connections from the MTL to the frontal eye fields, and to lower-level cortical visual processing regions, suppressed bottom-up connections along the visual stream, and enhanced vividness of the constructed scenes. Taken together, these findings provide novel, non-invasive evidence for the underlying, directional, connectivity between the MTL memory system and oculomotor system associated with constructing vivid mental representations of scenes.


Asunto(s)
Movimientos Oculares , Imagen por Resonancia Magnética , Hipocampo , Humanos , Imaginación , Imagen por Resonancia Magnética/métodos , Lóbulo Temporal/diagnóstico por imagen
8.
J Cogn Neurosci ; 33(9): 1976-1989, 2021 08 01.
Artículo en Inglés | MEDLINE | ID: mdl-34375419

RESUMEN

The ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC) is involved in diverse cognitive operations, from inhibitory control to processing of semantic schemas. When accompanied by damage to the basal forebrain, vmPFC lesions can also impair relational memory, the ability to form and recall relations among items. Impairments in establishing direct relations among items (e.g., A is related to B, B is related to C) can also hinder the transitive processing of indirect relationships (e.g., inferring that A and C are related through direct relations that each contain B). Past work has found that transitive inference improves when the direct relations are organized within an existing knowledge structure, or schema. This type of semantic support is most effective for individuals whose relational memory deficits are mild (e.g., healthy age-related decline) rather than pronounced (e.g., hippocampal amnesia, amnestic mild cognitive impairment). Given that vmPFC damage can produce both relational memory and schema processing deficits, such damage may pose a particular challenge in establishing the type of relational structure required for transitive inference, even when supported by preexisting knowledge. To examine this idea, we tested individuals with lesions to the mPFC on multiple conditions that varied in pre-experimental semantic support and explored the extent to which they could identify both previously studied (direct) and novel transitive (indirect) relations. Most of the mPFC cases showed marked transitive inference deficits and even showed impaired knowledge of preexisting, direct, semantic relations, consistent with disruptions to schema-related processes. However, one case with more dorsal mPFC damage showed preserved ability to identify direct relations and make novel inferences, particularly when pre-experimental knowledge could be used to support performance. These results suggest that damage to the mPFC and basal forebrain can impede establishment of ad hoc relational schemas upon which transitive inference is based, but that appealing to prior knowledge may still be useful for those neurological cases that have some degree of preserved relational memory.


Asunto(s)
Prosencéfalo Basal , Amnesia , Hipocampo , Humanos , Corteza Prefrontal/diagnóstico por imagen , Semántica
9.
Cogn Neuropsychiatry ; 26(6): 421-440, 2021 11.
Artículo en Inglés | MEDLINE | ID: mdl-34633280

RESUMEN

INTRODUCTION: Relational memory (RM) is severely impaired in schizophrenia. Unitisation can circumvent RM impairments in clinical populations as measured by the transverse-patterning (TP) task, a well-established measure of RM capacity. We compared memory performance on a new ecological RM measure, the Relational Trip Task (RTT), to that of TP at baseline and examined the effects of a unitisation intervention in RTT performance. RTT involves learning relational information of real-life stimuli, such as the relationship between people and places or objects. METHODS: TP and RTT performances were examined in 45 individuals with schizophrenia. TP-impaired participants (n = 22) were randomised to either the intervention or an active control group. TP and RTT were administered again after unitisation training. Task validity and reliability were assessed. Intervention group's pre- and post-RTT accuracies were compared and contrasted to that in the control group. RESULTS: RTT and TP were moderately correlated. TP non-learners had inferior performance in RTT at baseline. Improvement in RTT performance after unitisation training was observed in the intervention group; no pre-post improvement was observed in the control group. CONCLUSION: RTT has an acceptable criterion validity and excellent alternate-form reliability. Unitisation seemed to be successfully generalized to support associations of real-life stimuli.


Asunto(s)
Esquizofrenia , Cognición , Humanos , Aprendizaje , Trastornos de la Memoria , Reproducibilidad de los Resultados
10.
Cogn Neuropsychol ; 37(1-2): 75-96, 2020.
Artículo en Inglés | MEDLINE | ID: mdl-31722612

RESUMEN

Healthy older adults show impaired relational learning, but improved transitive expression when inferences are made across pre-experimentally known premise relations. Here, we used the transitivity paradigm to ask whether the organizational structure within schemas facilitates the bridging of relations for novel inference for otherwise healthy older adults who are exhibiting early signs of cognitive decline ("at-risk" older adults), and individuals with single- or multiple-domain amnestic mild cognitive impairment (aMCI). Relational learning was impaired in the two older adult groups, but transitive expression was facilitated by prior semantic knowledge of relations. Prior semantic knowledge did not improve novel inference for aMCI individuals. Schematic scaffolding can successfully support inference in preclinical cognitive decline, but such cognitive support may no longer be useful later in the disease process when dysfunction in neural circuitry may be too severe. The findings encourage future work of semantic knowledge and inference in larger samples of aMCI cases.


Asunto(s)
Disfunción Cognitiva/diagnóstico , Pruebas Neuropsicológicas/normas , Semántica , Adolescente , Adulto , Femenino , Humanos , Conocimiento , Masculino , Adulto Joven
11.
Cereb Cortex ; 29(3): 1075-1089, 2019 03 01.
Artículo en Inglés | MEDLINE | ID: mdl-29415220

RESUMEN

Half a century ago, Donald Hebb posited that mental imagery is a constructive process that emulates perception. Specifically, Hebb claimed that visual imagery results from the reactivation of neural activity associated with viewing images. He also argued that neural reactivation and imagery benefit from the re-enactment of eye movement patterns that first occurred at viewing (fixation reinstatement). To investigate these claims, we applied multivariate pattern analyses to functional MRI (fMRI) and eye tracking data collected while healthy human participants repeatedly viewed and visualized complex images. We observed that the specificity of neural reactivation correlated positively with vivid imagery and with memory for stimulus image details. Moreover, neural reactivation correlated positively with fixation reinstatement, meaning that image-specific eye movements accompanied image-specific patterns of brain activity during visualization. These findings support the conception of mental imagery as a simulation of perception, and provide evidence consistent with the supportive role of eye movement in neural reactivation.


Asunto(s)
Encéfalo/fisiología , Movimientos Oculares , Imaginación/fisiología , Percepción Visual/fisiología , Adolescente , Adulto , Mapeo Encefálico , Femenino , Humanos , Imagen por Resonancia Magnética , Masculino , Memoria/fisiología , Análisis Multivariante , Estimulación Luminosa , Adulto Joven
12.
Brain Inj ; 34(12): 1646-1654, 2020 10 14.
Artículo en Inglés | MEDLINE | ID: mdl-33090913

RESUMEN

BACKGROUND: Alterations in resting-state functional connectivity (rsFC) occur in the acute and chronic phases following traumatic brain injury (TBI); however, few studies have assessed long-term (>1 year) changes in rsFC. METHODS: Resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging (rsfMRI) scans were obtained from the Federal Interagency Traumatic Brain Injury Research Informatics Systems. Patients with primarily mild TBI (n = 39) completed rsfMRI scans at the sub-acute (~10 days) and long-term (~18 months) phases. We examined changes in voxel-based rsFC from anterior medial prefrontal cortex (aMPFC) and posterior cingulate cortex (PCC) seeds in the default mode network (DMN) between both phases. The effect of age at the time of injury on long-term rsFC was also examined. RESULTS: Increased rsFC from the aMPFC and the PCC to frontal and temporal regions was shown at ~18-months post-injury. Widespread increases in rsFC from the aMPFC and between the PCC and frontal regions were shown for younger patients at time of injury, but limited increases of rsFC were noted at ~18 months in older patients. CONCLUSION: Long-term increases in rsFC were found following TBI, but age at the time of injury was associated with distinct rsFC profiles suggesting that younger patients show greater increases in rsFC over time.


Asunto(s)
Conmoción Encefálica , Encéfalo , Anciano , Encéfalo/diagnóstico por imagen , Mapeo Encefálico , Giro del Cíngulo , Humanos , Imagen por Resonancia Magnética , Corteza Prefrontal
13.
J Cogn Neurosci ; 31(5): 711-729, 2019 05.
Artículo en Inglés | MEDLINE | ID: mdl-30822207

RESUMEN

The lateral portion of the entorhinal cortex is one of the first brain regions affected by tau pathology, an important biomarker for Alzheimer disease. Improving our understanding of this region's cognitive role may help identify better cognitive tests for early detection of Alzheimer disease. Based on its functional connections, we tested the idea that the human anterolateral entorhinal cortex (alERC) may play a role in integrating spatial information into object representations. We recently demonstrated that the volume of the alERC was related to processing the spatial relationships of the features within an object [Yeung, L. K., Olsen, R. K., Bild-Enkin, H. E. P., D'Angelo, M. C., Kacollja, A., McQuiggan, D. A., et al. Anterolateral entorhinal cortex volume predicted by altered intra-item configural processing. Journal of Neuroscience, 37, 5527-5538, 2017]. In this study, we investigated whether the human alERC might also play a role in processing the spatial relationships between an object and its environment using an eye-tracking task that assessed visual fixations to a critical object within a scene. Guided by rodent work, we measured both object-in-place memory, the association of an object with a given context [Wilson, D. I., Langston, R. F., Schlesiger, M. I., Wagner, M., Watanabe, S., & Ainge, J. A. Lateral entorhinal cortex is critical for novel object-context recognition. Hippocampus, 23, 352-366, 2013], and object-trace memory, the memory for the former location of objects [Tsao, A., Moser, M. B., & Moser, E. I. Traces of experience in the lateral entorhinal cortex. Current Biology, 23, 399-405, 2013]. In a group of older adults with varying stages of brain atrophy and cognitive decline, we found that the volume of the alERC and the volume of the parahippocampal cortex selectively predicted object-in-place memory, but not object-trace memory. These results provide support for the notion that the alERC may integrate spatial information into object representations.


Asunto(s)
Corteza Entorrinal/fisiología , Percepción de Forma/fisiología , Giro Parahipocampal/fisiología , Reconocimiento Visual de Modelos/fisiología , Procesamiento Espacial/fisiología , Anciano , Anciano de 80 o más Años , Corteza Entorrinal/anatomía & histología , Movimientos Oculares , Femenino , Humanos , Imagen por Resonancia Magnética , Masculino , Memoria , Persona de Mediana Edad , Tamaño de los Órganos , Giro Parahipocampal/anatomía & histología
14.
Learn Mem ; 25(1): 31-44, 2018 01.
Artículo en Inglés | MEDLINE | ID: mdl-29246979

RESUMEN

The thalamic nuclei are thought to play a critical role in recognition memory. Specifically, the anterior thalamic nuclei and medial dorsal nuclei may serve as critical output structures in distinct hippocampal and perirhinal cortex systems, respectively. Existing evidence indicates that damage to the anterior thalamic nuclei leads to impairments in hippocampal-dependent tasks. However, evidence for the opposite pattern following medial dorsal nuclei damage has not yet been identified. In the present study, we investigated recognition memory in NC, a patient with relatively selective medial dorsal nuclei damage, using two object recognition tests with similar foils: a yes/no (YN) test that requires the hippocampus, and a forced choice corresponding test (FCC) that is supported by perirhinal cortex. NC performed normally in the YN test, but was impaired in the FCC test. Critically, FCC performance was impaired only when the study-test delay period was filled with interference. We interpret these results in the context of the representational-hierarchical model, which predicts that memory deficits following damage to the perirhinal system arise due to increased vulnerability to interference. These data provide the first evidence for selective deficits in a task that relies on perirhinal output following damage to the medial dorsal nuclei, providing critical evidence for dissociable thalamic contributions to recognition memory.


Asunto(s)
Trastornos de la Memoria/fisiopatología , Reconocimiento en Psicología/fisiología , Núcleos Talámicos/lesiones , Núcleos Talámicos/fisiopatología , Femenino , Humanos , Trastornos de la Memoria/diagnóstico por imagen , Modelos Neurológicos , Modelos Psicológicos , Pruebas Neuropsicológicas , Accidente Cerebrovascular/diagnóstico por imagen , Accidente Cerebrovascular/fisiopatología , Accidente Cerebrovascular/psicología , Núcleos Talámicos/diagnóstico por imagen , Núcleos Talámicos/fisiología , Adulto Joven
15.
J Neurosci ; 37(3): 599-609, 2017 01 18.
Artículo en Inglés | MEDLINE | ID: mdl-28100742

RESUMEN

Eye movements serve to accumulate information from the visual world, contributing to the formation of coherent memory representations that support cognition and behavior. The hippocampus and the oculomotor network are well connected anatomically through an extensive set of polysynaptic pathways. However, the extent to which visual sampling behavior is related to functional responses in the hippocampus during encoding has not been studied directly in human neuroimaging. In the current study, participants engaged in a face processing task while brain responses were recorded with fMRI and eye movements were monitored simultaneously. The number of gaze fixations that a participant made on a given trial was correlated significantly with hippocampal activation such that more fixations were associated with stronger hippocampal activation. Similar results were also found in the fusiform face area, a face-selective perceptual processing region. Notably, the number of fixations was associated with stronger hippocampal activation when the presented faces were novel, but not when the faces were repeated. Increases in fixations during viewing of novel faces also led to larger repetition-related suppression in the hippocampus, indicating that this fixation-hippocampal relationship may reflect the ongoing development of lasting representations. Together, these results provide novel empirical support for the idea that visual exploration and hippocampal binding processes are inherently linked. SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT: The hippocampal and oculomotor networks have each been studied extensively for their roles in the binding of information and gaze function, respectively. Despite the evidence that individuals with amnesia whose damage includes the hippocampus show alterations in their eye movement patterns and recent findings that the two systems are anatomically connected, it has not been demonstrated whether visual exploration is related to hippocampal activity in neurologically intact adults. In this combined fMRI-eye-tracking study, we show how hippocampal responses scale with the number of gaze fixations made during viewing of novel, but not repeated, faces. These findings provide new evidence suggesting that the hippocampus plays an important role in the binding of information, as sampled by gaze fixations, during visual exploration.


Asunto(s)
Movimientos Oculares/fisiología , Hipocampo/fisiología , Reconocimiento Visual de Modelos/fisiología , Estimulación Luminosa/métodos , Adulto , Femenino , Predicción , Humanos , Imagen por Resonancia Magnética/métodos , Masculino , Adulto Joven
16.
J Neurosci ; 37(22): 5527-5538, 2017 05 31.
Artículo en Inglés | MEDLINE | ID: mdl-28473640

RESUMEN

Recent functional imaging studies have proposed that the human entorhinal cortex (ERC) is subdivided into functionally distinct anterolateral (alERC) and posteromedial (pmERC) subregions. The alERC overlaps with regions that are affected earliest by Alzheimer's disease pathology, yet its cognitive function remains poorly understood. Previous human fMRI studies have focused on its role in object memory, but rodent studies on the putatively homologous lateral entorhinal cortex suggest that it also plays an important role in representing spatial properties of objects. To investigate the cognitive effects of human alERC volume differences, we developed an eye-tracking-based task to evaluate intra-item configural processing (i.e., processing the arrangement of an object's features) and used manual segmentation based on a recently developed protocol to delineate the alERC/pmERC and other medial temporal lobe (MTL) subregions. In a group of older adult men and women at varying stages of brain atrophy and cognitive decline, we found that intra-item configural processing, regardless of an object's novelty, was strongly predicted by alERC volume, but not by the volume of any other MTL subregion. These results provide the first evidence that the human alERC plays a role in supporting a distinct aspect of object processing, namely attending to the arrangement of an object's component features.SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT Alzheimer's disease pathology appears earliest in brain regions that overlap with the anterolateral entorhinal cortex (alERC). However, the cognitive role of the alERC is poorly understood. Previous human studies treat the alERC as an extension of the neighboring perirhinal cortex, supporting object memory. Animal studies suggest that the alERC may support the spatial properties of objects. In a group of older adult humans at the earliest stages of cognitive decline, we show here that alERC volume selectively predicted configural processing (attention to the spatial arrangement of an object's parts). This is the first study to demonstrate a cognitive role related to alERC volume in humans. This task can be adapted to serve as an early detection method for Alzheimer's disease pathology.


Asunto(s)
Cognición , Disfunción Cognitiva/fisiopatología , Corteza Entorrinal/fisiopatología , Percepción de Forma , Red Nerviosa/fisiopatología , Reconocimiento Visual de Modelos , Anciano , Anciano de 80 o más Años , Atrofia/patología , Disfunción Cognitiva/patología , Corteza Entorrinal/patología , Femenino , Humanos , Masculino , Persona de Mediana Edad , Red Nerviosa/patología , Tamaño de los Órganos/fisiología
17.
Mem Cognit ; 45(8): 1306-1318, 2017 11.
Artículo en Inglés | MEDLINE | ID: mdl-28721685

RESUMEN

Memory impairments are often observed in aging. Specifically, older adults have difficulty binding together disparate elements (relational memory). We have recently shown that a cognitive strategy known as unitization can mitigate impaired relational learning in the transverse patterning task (TP) in both amnesia and healthy aging. This strategy allows items to be fused together through an interaction such that one item acts upon another. In the context of TP, unitization is comprised of three component processes: (1) fusion, (2) motion, and (3) semantic comprehension of action/consequence sequences. Here, we examine which of these components are sufficient to mitigate age-related impairments. Four groups of older adults were given either the full unitization strategy or one of the three component strategies. Each group of older adults showed impairments in memory for the relations among items under standard training instructions relative to a threshold that marks learning of a winner-take-all rule (elemental threshold). However, participants who were given either the full unitization strategy or the action/consequence-only strategy showed improved performance, which was maintained following the 1-hour delay. Therefore, semantically rich action/consequence interactions are sufficient to mitigate age-related relational memory impairments.


Asunto(s)
Envejecimiento/fisiología , Comprensión/fisiología , Aprendizaje/fisiología , Trastornos de la Memoria/fisiopatología , Anciano , Humanos , Persona de Mediana Edad
18.
Memory ; 25(4): 436-449, 2017 04.
Artículo en Inglés | MEDLINE | ID: mdl-27184459

RESUMEN

Episodic memories are comprised of details of "where" and "when"; spatial and temporal relations, respectively. However, evidence from behavioural, neuropsychological, and neuroimaging studies has provided mixed interpretations about how memories for spatial and temporal relations are organised-they may be hierarchical, fully interactive, or independent. In the current study, we examined the interaction of memory for spatial and temporal relations. Using explicit reports and eye-tracking, we assessed younger and older adults' memory for spatial and temporal relations of objects that were presented singly across time in unique spatial locations. Explicit change detection of spatial relations was affected by a change in temporal relations, but explicit change detection of temporal relations was not affected by a change in spatial relations. Younger and older adults showed eye movement evidence of incidental memory for temporal relations, but only younger adults showed eye movement evidence of incidental memory for spatial relations. Together, these findings point towards a hierarchical organisation of relational memory. The implications of these findings are discussed in the context of the neural mechanisms that may support such a hierarchical organisation of memory.


Asunto(s)
Movimientos Oculares , Memoria Episódica , Memoria Espacial , Factores de Edad , Anciano , Humanos , Pruebas Neuropsicológicas , Percepción Visual , Adulto Joven
19.
J Neurosci ; 35(13): 5342-50, 2015 Apr 01.
Artículo en Inglés | MEDLINE | ID: mdl-25834058

RESUMEN

Current theories state that the hippocampus is responsible for the formation of memory representations regarding relations, whereas extrahippocampal cortical regions support representations for single items. However, findings of impaired item memory in hippocampal amnesics suggest a more nuanced role for the hippocampus in item memory. The hippocampus may be necessary when the item elements need to be bound within and across episodes to form a lasting representation that can be used flexibly. The current investigation was designed to test this hypothesis in face recognition. H.C., an individual who developed with a compromised hippocampal system, and control participants incidentally studied individual faces that either varied in presentation viewpoint across study repetitions or remained in a fixed viewpoint across the study repetitions. Eye movements were recorded during encoding and participants then completed a surprise recognition memory test. H.C. demonstrated altered face viewing during encoding. Although the overall number of fixations made by H.C. was not significantly different from that of controls, the distribution of her viewing was primarily directed to the eye region. Critically, H.C. was significantly impaired in her ability to subsequently recognize faces studied from variable viewpoints, but demonstrated spared performance in recognizing faces she encoded from a fixed viewpoint, implicating a relationship between eye movement behavior in the service of a hippocampal binding function. These findings suggest that a compromised hippocampal system disrupts the ability to bind item features within and across study repetitions, ultimately disrupting recognition when it requires access to flexible relational representations.


Asunto(s)
Amnesia/fisiopatología , Cara , Hipocampo/fisiología , Reconocimiento en Psicología/fisiología , Amnesia/psicología , Estudios de Casos y Controles , Movimientos Oculares/fisiología , Femenino , Hipocampo/fisiopatología , Humanos , Masculino , Pruebas Neuropsicológicas , Estimulación Luminosa , Tiempo de Reacción , Adulto Joven
20.
J Cogn Neurosci ; 28(11): 1772-1783, 2016 Nov.
Artículo en Inglés | MEDLINE | ID: mdl-27378328

RESUMEN

Visual behavior is guided by memories from prior experience and knowledge of the visual scene. The hippocampal system (HC), in particular, has been implicated in the guidance of saccades: Amnesic patients, following damage to the HC, exhibit selective deficits in their gaze patterns. However, the neural circuitry by which mnemonic representations influence the oculomotor system remains unknown. We used a data-driven, network-based approach on directed anatomical connectivity from the macaque brain to reveal an extensive set of polysnaptic pathways spanning the extrastriate, posterior parietal and prefrontal cortices that potentially mediate the exchange of information between the memory and visuo-oculomotor systems. We additionally show how the potential for directed information flow from the hippocampus to oculomotor control areas is exceptionally high. In particular, the dorsolateral pFC and FEF-regions known to be responsible for the cognitive control of saccades-are topologically well positioned to receive information from the hippocampus. Together with neuropsychological evidence of altered gaze patterns following damage to the hippocampus, our findings suggest that a reconsideration of hippocampal involvement in oculomotor guidance is needed.

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