Daniel L Schacter
Harvard University
Project start date: 2000-03-15
Project end date: 2015-01-31
Sponsored Links Excellgen http://Excellgen.com
EVENT RELATED NEUROIMAGING OF HUMAN MEMORY FORMATION
Daniel L Schacter, Professor
Psychologyharvard University
1350 Massachusetts Ave
cambridge, Ma 02138
Grant 5R01MH060941-02 from National Institute Of Mental Health IRG: ZRG1
Abstract: Memory is a critical component of human cognition, with major implications for everyday life and mental health. A key feature of human memory concerns the encoding processes that play a crucial role in the formation of enduring recollections. The proposed experiments use recently developed event-related functional magnetic resonance imaging techniques in an attempt to map structures and processes that underly encoding of new memories, and to test specific hypothesis concerning the nature of encoding. The first specific aim is to characterize the functional anatomy associated with different levels of encoding, and test hypotheses concerning the involvement of specific brain regions in particular forms of encoding. Preliminary results suggest that levels of activity within the left prefrontal cortex and parahippocampal cortex during encoding predict whether verbal experiences will be subsequently remembered or forgotten. Experiments 1-5 examine different types and levels of encoding operations in an attempt to expand our knowledge of the brain processes and systems that contribute to the formation of verbal memories. Several of these experiments examine the contributions of visual imagery, phonological encoding, and relational or associative information to the formation of new memories, whereas others examine such fundamental issues as the relation between attention and memory. The second specific aim is to test hypotheses concerning the generality of the contributions of parahippocampal cortex to memory encoding by varying the nature of the materials to-be encoded. Experiments 6-7 examine this issue using nonverbal materials pictures and melodies. The third specific aim is to test hypotheses about the consequences of encoding of previously exposed stimuli for further encoding of those stimuli. These experiments will help to create new links between studies of encoding and related work on how repetition benefits learning, and how people detect changes to objects in their environments. Previous research has revealed that encoding processes play a key role in mental disorders such as depression, and are crucial in efforts to rehabilitate memory deficits are brain damage. The proposed studies will provide new information about the neuroanatomical bases of encoding processes and thereby contribute to the further development of rehabilitation efforts
Keywords: attention, brain imaging /visualization /scanning, brain mapping, brain scanning, functional magnetic resonance imaging, hearing, memory, prefrontal lobe /cortex, vision behavioral /social science research tag, bioimaging /biomedical imaging, clinical research, human subject
Project start date: 2000-03-15
Project end date: 2004-02-29
5R01MH060941-02 (2001): $311501
EVENT-RELATED NEUROIMAGING OF HUMAN MEMORY FORMATION
Daniel L Schacter
Harvard University, 1350 Massachusetts Ave, Cambridge, Ma 02138
Grant 5R01MH060941-09 from National Institute Of Mental Health
Abstract: Memory is a critical component of human cognition, and has major implications for everyday life and mental health. The long-term goals of this project are to increase our understanding of critical encoding and retrieval processes, and to help explain why memory is sometimes inaccurate, by using recently developed event-related functional magnetic resonance imaging techniques. The first 2 specific aims focus on basic aspects of encoding and retrieval, whereas the next 3 focus on memory distortion. The first specific aim is to characterize the functional anatomy of encoding, and test hypotheses concerning the involvement of specific brain regions in encoding variability, repetition priming, and response learning effects. Experiments 1-2 examine encoding manipulations that improve or impair subsequent memory, using techniques that link brain activity during encoding with later memory performance. The 2nd specific aim is to test hypotheses concerning the role of prefrontal cortex in specific aspects of strategic retrieval, which we do in Experiments 3 and 4 by manipulating the usefulness of recollective retrieval strategies. The 3rd specific aim is to characterize the neural underpinnings of true and false memory by testing the hypotheses that true memory, more than false memory, involves reactivation of sensory cortices involved in perceptual encoding, and that sensory reactivation reflects the influence of priming, a form of implicit memory. Experiments 5-10 accomplish this objective by comparing true and false memories, and conscious versus nonconscious recognition, for visual shapes, patterns, and objects. The 4th specific aim is to characterize encoding processes that result in memory errors in which people falsely recognize similar objects as the same ones they previously studied. Experiments 11-12 accomplish these objectives by using experimental procedures that relate particular encoding events to later true and false recognition. The 5th specific aim is to link work on memory distortion with research concerning perception of objects and scenes. Experiments 13 and 14 evaluate hypotheses regarding the role played by regions of parahippocampal cortex involved in contextual associations in false recognition of objects, and Experiment 15 examines the role of this region in boundary extension, where people "remember" aspects of a scene that were not presented in a photograph but are likely to have been present just beyond its borders. The proposed studies will increase our understanding of how memories are constructed, and will also contribute to efforts to improve memory
Keywords: Anatomic; Anatomical Sciences; Anatomy; Anterior; Brain; Brain region; Characteristics; Cognition; Conscious; Consciousness; Encephalon; Encephalons; Event; Familiarity; Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging; Goals; Grant; Human; Human, General; Imaging Procedures; Imaging Techniques; Inferior; Instruction; Knowledge; Lead; Learning; Left; Life; Link; MRI, Functional; Magnetic Resonance Imaging, Functional; Man (Taxonomy); Man, Modern; Memory; Mental Health; Mental Hygiene; Methods and Techniques; Methods, Other; Nature; Nervous; Nervous System, Brain; Pattern; Pb element; Performance; Play; Prefrontal Cortex; Procedures; Process; Psychological Health; Recognition (Psychology); Recruitment Activity; Reliance; Research; Retrieval; Role; Science of Anatomy; Semantic; Semantics; Sensory; Shapes; Stimulus; Technics, Imaging; Techniques; Testing; Visual; Work; anatomy; experiment; experimental research; experimental study; fMRI; heavy metal Pb; heavy metal lead; implicit memory; improved; memory recognition; neural; neural mechanism; neuroimaging; neuromechanism; object perception; object recognition; recruit; relating to nervous system; research study; response; sensory cortex; social role; visual process; visual processing
Project start date: 2000-03-15
Project end date: 2011-03-31
Budget start date: 1-APR-2009
Budget end date: 31-MAR-2011
5R01MH060941-09 (2009): $409399
5R01MH060941-07 (2007): $393504
5R01MH060941-06 (2006): $388946
EVENT RELATED NEUROIMAGING OF HUMAN MEMORY FORMATION
Daniel L Schacter, Professor
Harvard University 1350 Massachusetts Ave Cambridge, Ma 02138
Grant 5R01MH060941-04 from National Institute Of Mental Health IRG: ZRG1
Abstract: Adapted from the Investigator s ) Memory is a critical component of human cognition, with major implications for everyday life and mental health. A key feature of human memory concerns the encoding processes that play a crucial role in the formation of enduring recollections. The proposed experiments use recently developed event-related functional magnetic resonance imaging techniques in an attempt to map structures and processes that underly encoding of new memories, and to test specific hypothesis concerning the nature of encoding. The first specific aim is to characterize the functional anatomy associated with different levels of encoding, and test hypotheses concerning the involvement of specific brain regions in particular forms of encoding. Preliminary results suggest that levels of activity within the left prefrontal cortex and parahippocampal cortex during encoding predict whether verbal experiences will be subsequently remembered or forgotten. Experiments 1-5 examine different types and levels of encoding operations in an attempt to expand our knowledge of the brain processes and systems that contribute to the formation of verbal memories. Several of these experiments examine the contributions of visual imagery, phonological encoding, and relational or associative information to the formation of new memories, whereas others examine such fundamental issues as the relation between attention and memory. The second specific aim is to test hypotheses concerning the generality of the contributions of parahippocampal cortex to memory encoding by varying the nature of the materials to-be encoded. Experiments 6-7 examine this issue using nonverbal materials pictures and melodies. The third specific aim is to test hypotheses about the consequences of encoding of previously exposed stimuli for further encoding of those stimuli. These experiments will help to create new links between studies of encoding and related work on how repetition benefits learning, and how people detect changes to objects in their environments. Previous research has revealed that encoding processes play a key role in mental disorders such as depression, and are crucial in efforts to rehabilitate memory deficits are brain damage. The proposed studies will provide new information about the neuroanatomical bases of encoding processes and thereby contribute to the further development of rehabilitation efforts.
Keywords: attention, brain imaging /visualization /scanning, brain mapping, functional magnetic resonance imaging, hearing, memory, prefrontal lobe /cortex, vision, behavioral /social science research tag, bioimaging /biomedical imaging, clinical research, human subject
Project start date: 2000-03-15
Project end date: 2005-02-28
5R01MH060941-04 (2003): $323930
Grants awarded to Daniel L Schacter
Daniel L Schacter, Professor
Harvard University 1350 Massachusetts Ave Cambridge, Ma 02138
Grant 5R01AG012675-03 from National Institute On Aging IRG: HUD
Abstract: Visual mental imagery helps people to perform a host of tasks, including remembering events, spatial reasoning, and language comprehension. The images produced in the service of these activities are the result of a complex information processing system. This system can be conceptualized as being composed of a set of distinct "processing subsystems," each of which performs a specific cognitive operation (e.g., shifting the orientation of an imaged object, activating stored visual memories to create an image, encoding the relative location of part of the imaged object). The research described here makes use of a theory of these processing subsystems that draws on concepts from artificial intelligence and facts about the neurological substrate of high.level vision. The research will characterize the relative efficacy of eleven of these subsystems in the elderly, compared to younger adults. The primary aim of the research is to discover whether certain subsystems are, relative to other subsystems, selectively more effective in senescence. The research aims to disprove the idea that cognitive aging can be understood solely in terms of "generalized slowing," showing that slowing with age differs for different subsystems. If so, then strategies that make use of relatively effective subsystems should be more useful for elderly people than strategies that rely on ineffective subsystems. The experiments designed here are a step toward using contemporary theory from cognitive neuroscience and techniques of task analysis from cognitive science to design new tests for cognitive efficiency in the senescence.
Keywords: human old age (65+), image processing, neural information processing, adolescence (12-18), age difference, attention, cognition, memory, neuroscience, occipital lobe /cortex, performance, retina, space perception, vision, visual perception, visual stimulus, human subject, questionnaire
Project start date: 1995-01-20
Project end date: 1998-12-31
5R01AG012675-03 (1997): $165380
GRADUATE TRAINING IN PSYCHOLOGY AND NEUROIMAGING
Daniel L Schacter
Harvard University, 1350 Massachusetts Ave, Cambridge, Ma 02138
Grant 5T32MH070328-05 from National Institute Of Mental Health
Abstract: This plan for Graduate Training in Psychology and Neuroimaging rests on multidisciplinary collaborations between 23 faculty members in the Psychology Department at Harvard University and the Athinoula A. Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging at the Massachusetts General Hospital. The training program aims to prepare a new generation of scientists whose graduate training concentrates on linking human brain function to cognitive processing through neuroimaging research. Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), magnetoencephalography (MEG), electroencephalography (EEG), positron emission tomography (PET), and near-infrared spectrography (NIRS) have emerged as central tools in cognitive neuroscience. By training students to use these neuroimaging methods effectively, our goal is to equip them with the means to answer questions about the neural bases of mental processing with technological competence. A demanding 5-year program of graduate training is proposed to meet this goal. Although the emphasis is on traditional cognitive psychology, it will be readily possible for trainees to address issues of cognitive development, social cognition and psychopathology. Each student will be admitted into a program in the psychology department and will be expected to fulfill the requirements of that specific program, including first-year, second-year and Ph.D. thesis research projects. In addition, every trainee will take two team-taught courses in their first two years a course in Cognition, Brain and Behavior (taught by all the training faculty in psychology and faculty in cognitive psychology at the Martinos Center) and an intensive introduction to functional brain imaging (taught by training and other faculty from the Martinos Center). In subsequent years, trainees will take a research seminar jointly taught by all faculty. Students will explore particular areas of cognitive and brain function in depth, develop skills for crafting experiments that dissect specific cognitive functions, present their research, and interact with other trainees in the program. The goal of these requirements is to impart knowledge that is broad and deep, both about the human brain and about the cognitive functions that it performs. Throughout their training, students will be co-advised by one Harvard Psychology and one Martinos Center faculty
Keywords: Psychology; Training; neuroimaging
Project start date: 2004-07-01
Project end date: 2010-03-15
Budget start date: 1-JUL-2008
Budget end date: 15-MAR-2010
5T32MH070328-05 (2008): $0
Daniel L Schacter, Professor
Harvard University 1350 Massachusetts Ave Cambridge, Ma 02138
Grant 5R01AG008441-10 from National Institute On Aging IRG: HUD
Abstract: The long-term goals of the project are to facilitate understanding of the effects of cognitive aging on memory processes, and to provide a basis for the development of techniques and interventions that can aid memory functions of the elderly in everyday life. The specific aims of the proposed research are to elucidate the basis for previously observed age- related impairments in both explicit memory (conscious recollection of past events) and implicit memory (nonconscious influences of past events on subsequent performance). The main hypothesis is that a variety of deficits exhibited by elderly adults on explicit and implicit memory tests are attributable to an age-related impairment in binding together different kinds of information into an integrated memory trace of an episode. One consequence of this deficit is that the recollective experience of elderly adults is often impoverished they fail to recollect the perceptual contexts of past events, and they are relatively less likely than the young to consciously "remember" the past occurrence of an event, and instead tend to say that they just "know" that the event occurred. The proposed research on explicit memory will investigate these issues in a novel domain that has potentially important theoretical and practical implications, but has not yet been studied experimentally the effects of exposure of photographs of events from recently experienced episodes on subsequent memory performance and recollective experience. Photographs are highly valued by elderly adults for their memory cueing functions, but there is no published research that has examined how looking at photos of past events influences elderly adults subsequent recollections. It is hypothesized that exposure to photos will assist the elderly in binding together elements of episodes, and will therefore enhance their recollective experience. The proposed studies will examine the nature of, and basis for, photo exposure effects with a newly developed experimental paradigm in which old and young subjects view videotapes of simple events and later look at photos of some of the events. Effects of photo exposure are then assessed on tests of recall, recognition, and recollective experience. The research on implicit memory will also examine issues pertaining to elderly adults ability to bind together different kinds of information. Tests that require identification or completion of spoken word fragments will be used to examine implicit memory for recently heard words and voices. Proposed experiments will test the hypothesis that previously documented age- related deficits in implicit memory for voice information are observed when priming depends on, or is enhanced by, binding together word and voice information.
Keywords: aging, memory, cognition, experience, functional ability, memory disorder, neural information processing, performance, photography, human old age (65+), human subject, human very old age (85+), videotape /videodisc, young adult human (19-34)
Project start date: 1989-08-04
Project end date: 1999-12-31
5R01AG008441-10 (1999): $241322
5R01AG008441-09 (1998): $232041
5R01AG008441-08 (1997): $223116
EVENT-RELATED NEUROIMAGING OF HUMAN MEMORY FORMATION
Daniel L Schacter
Harvard University, 1350 Massachusetts Ave, Cambridge, Ma 02138
Grant 2R01MH060941-10A1 from National Institute Of Mental Health
Abstract: The general goal of this project is to provide insight into the nature and function of critical aspects of human memory, adopting a cognitive neuroscience approach that attempts to link together cognitive and neural processes. The experiments proposed here follow directly from research in our laboratory that has focused broadly on trying to understand how memory operates as a constructive process. Research in both cognitive psychology and neuroscience supports the idea that memory is not a simple recording and reproduction of experience, but instead involves constructive processes that assemble memories from bits and pieces of encoded experiences. These constructive processes often produce accurate memories of past events, but sometimes result in errors and distortions that provide key theoretical insights into the components of the underlying cognitive and neural operations. We are concerned with understanding the nature of both encoding and retrieval processes that contribute to constructive memory. Further, we have recently begun to explore how these constructive processes allow individuals to use memory to imagine or simulate possible future events. This broad concern with understanding constructive memory and its role in guiding future-oriented cognitive and neural processes guides all of our specific hypotheses and experiments. Several experiments will explore how memory is used to construct representations of possible future events, using new methods that we have developed in our recent work. A striking finding is that a number of brain regions traditionally associated with memory - including the hippocampus, a structure often implicated in clinical cases of amnesia - also appear to play a role in constructing simulations of future events. Two experiments will test our ideas concerning the role of the hippocampus in recombining and encoding elements of experience, and recalling simulations of future events. Another experiment will test our hypothesis that hippocampal involvement in associative or relational encoding, which promotes flexible access to information useful for simulating future events, may also be linked to memory distortion. Related experiments will test hypotheses concerning how a larger "core network" of brain regions, and subsystems within that network, support future event simulations, whereas others attempt to gain analytic insight into the functioning of this network by examining repetition-related reductions in activity that we have previously studied in attempting to understand nonconscious priming processes. We will also initiate new studies examining the formation of goal-directed simulations and plans. In a closely related line of work, we propose novel paradigms to illuminate the relation between contextual processing and memory distortion, focusing on regions of the core network involved in simulating future events that have also been linked to contextual processing, and exploring predictions concerning the role of these regions in false recognition of everyday scenes. These experiments should both enhance our understanding of basic memory processes, and could also provide insights relevant to clinical conditions. Memory impairments that occur in various neurological and psychological disorders, and as a result of normal aging, can have devastating impacts on everyday life. Further, problems in thinking about future events have been identified in aging, depression, schizophrenia, and other conditions. Our studies should increase our understanding of how we remember the past and imagine the future, thereby providing the kind of insight that is critical for appreciating how these processes change in clinical conditions and what can be done to treat them effectively. The proposed work is highly relevant to a number of mental health concerns. Memory is fundamentally important to numerous aspects of our everyday lives, and disorders of memory that impair everyday functions are commonly observed in such conditions as amnesic syndromes and Alzheimer´s disease, as well as in normal aging. Memory distortions are also important in everyday life, including legal issues such as eyewitness memory as well as aging memory. Further, mental simulations of future events are crucial to adaptive function and play a key role in influencing psychological well-being. Impaired abilities to imagine and think about future events have been documented in amnesia and aging, and also in several psychopathological conditions, including depression, anxiety, and schizophrenia. Our work on constructive memory and future event simulation could provide new insights that will enhance understanding of future thinking deficits in psychopathological conditions and provide new conceptual and experimental tools for studying them
Keywords: Access to Information; Accounting; Adopted; Age; Aging; Alzheimer; Alzheimer disease; Alzheimer sclerosis; Alzheimer syndrome; Alzheimer`s; Alzheimer`s Disease; Alzheimers Dementia; Alzheimers disease; Ammon Horn; Amnesia; Amnesia-Memory Loss; Anterior; Anxiety; Bite; Brain; Brain region; Clinical; Cognitive; Cognitive Science; Complex; Cornu Ammonis; DNA Recombination; DNA recombination (naturally occurring); Data; Dementia, Alzheimer Type; Dementia, Primary Senile Degenerative; Dementia, Senile; Depression; Dimensions; Elements; Emotional well being; Employee Strikes; Encephalon; Encephalons; Event; Feels well; Future; Genetic Recombination; Goals; Hippocampal Formation; Hippocampus; Hippocampus (Brain); Human; Human, General; Individual; Laboratories; Lateral; Legal; Life; Light; Link; London; Man (Taxonomy); Man, Modern; Medial; Memory; Memory Deficit; Memory Disorders; Memory impairment; Mental Depression; Mental Health; Mental Hygiene; Mental disorders; Mental health disorders; Mental well-being; Methods; Nature; Nervous; Nervous System, Brain; Neurologic; Neurological; Neurosciences; Normal mental condition; Normal mental state; Normal psyche; Operation; Operative Procedures; Operative Surgical Procedures; Parietal Lobe; Parietal Lobe of the Brain; Photoradiation; Play; Primary Senile Degenerative Dementia; Procedures; Process; Psyche structure; Psychiatric Disease; Psychiatric Disorder; Psychological Health; Psychological Well Being; Recombination; Recombination, Genetic; Reproduction; Research; Retention Disorders, Cognitive; Retrieval; Role; Schizophrenia; Schizophrenic Disorders; Semantic; Semantics; Senescence; Sense of well-being; Simulate; Stimulus; Strikes; Strikes, Employee; Structure; Surgical; Surgical Interventions; Surgical Procedure; Syndrome; Temporal Lobe; Testing; Thinking; Thinking, function; Unspecified Mental Disorder; Visual; Well in self; Work; ing; cognitive neuroscience; cognitive psychology; dementia of the Alzheimer type; dementia praecox; experience; experiment; experimental research; experimental study; flexibility; hippocampal; insight; memory process; mental; mental illness; neural; neuroimaging; normal aging; novel; outreach to information; parietal cortex; primary degenerative dementia; psychological disorder; psychological wellness; public health relevance; relating to nervous system; research study; schizophrenic; self wellness; senescent; senile dementia of the Alzheimer type; simulation; social role; surgery; temporal cortex; temporal lobe/cortex; tool; visual process; visual processing
Relevance: Public Health Relevance Narrative Statement The proposed work is highly relevant to a number of mental health concerns. Memory is fundamentally important to numerous aspects of our everyday lives, and disorders of memory that impair everyday functions are commonly observed in such conditions as amnesic syndromes and Alzheimer´s disease, as well as in normal aging. Memory distortions are also important in everyday life, including legal issues such as eyewitness memory as well as aging memory. Further, mental simulations of future events are crucial to adaptive function and play a key role in influencing psychological well-being. Impaired abilities to imagine and think about future events have been documented in amnesia and aging, and also in several psychopathological conditions, including depression, anxiety, and schizophrenia. Our work on constructive memory and future event simulation could provide new insights that will enhance understanding of future thinking deficits in psychopathological conditions and provide new conceptual and experimental tools for studying them
Project start date: 2000-03-15
Project end date: 2015-01-31
Budget start date: 6-MAY-2010
Budget end date: 31-JAN-2011
PFA/PA: PA-07-070
2R01MH060941-10A1 (2010): $420000
EVENT RELATED NEUROIMAGING OF HUMAN MEMORY FORMATION
Daniel L Schacter, Professor
Psychologyharvard University
1350 Massachusetts Ave
cambridge, Ma 02138
Grant 1R01MH060941-01 from National Institute Of Mental Health IRG: ZRG1
Abstract: Memory is a critical component of human cognition, with major implications for everyday life and mental health. A key feature of human memory concerns the encoding processes that play a crucial role in the formation of enduring recollections. The proposed experiments use recently developed event-related functional magnetic resonance imaging techniques in an attempt to map structures and processes that underly encoding of new memories, and to test specific hypothesis concerning the nature of encoding. The first specific aim is to characterize the functional anatomy associated with different levels of encoding, and test hypotheses concerning the involvement of specific brain regions in particular forms of encoding. Preliminary results suggest that levels of activity within the left prefrontal cortex and parahippocampal cortex during encoding predict whether verbal experiences will be subsequently remembered or forgotten. Experiments 1-5 examine different types and levels of encoding operations in an attempt to expand our knowledge of the brain processes and systems that contribute to the formation of verbal memories. Several of these experiments examine the contributions of visual imagery, phonological encoding, and relational or associative information to the formation of new memories, whereas others examine such fundamental issues as the relation between attention and memory. The second specific aim is to test hypotheses concerning the generality of the contributions of parahippocampal cortex to memory encoding by varying the nature of the materials to-be encoded. Experiments 6-7 examine this issue using nonverbal materials pictures and melodies. The third specific aim is to test hypotheses about the consequences of encoding of previously exposed stimuli for further encoding of those stimuli. These experiments will help to create new links between studies of encoding and related work on how repetition benefits learning, and how people detect changes to objects in their environments. Previous research has revealed that encoding processes play a key role in mental disorders such as depression, and are crucial in efforts to rehabilitate memory deficits are brain damage. The proposed studies will provide new information about the neuroanatomical bases of encoding processes and thereby contribute to the further development of rehabilitation efforts
Keywords: attention, brain mapping, brain scanning, functional magnetic resonance imaging, hearing, memory, prefrontal lobe /cortex, vision behavioral /social science research tag, bioimaging /biomedical imaging, clinical research, human subject
Project start date: 2000-03-15
Project end date: 2004-02-29
1R01MH060941-01 (2000): $288272
Event-related Neuroimaging Of Human Memory Formation
Daniel L Schacter, Professor
Harvard University 1350 Massachusetts Ave Cambridge, Ma 02138
Grant 2R01MH060941-05A2 from National Institute Of Mental Health IRG: CP
Abstract: Memory is a critical component of human cognition, and has major implications for everyday life and mental health. The long-term goals of this project are to increase our understanding of critical encoding and retrieval processes, and to help explain why memory is sometimes inaccurate, by using recently developed event-related functional magnetic resonance imaging techniques. The first 2 specific aims focus on basic aspects of encoding and retrieval, whereas the next 3 focus on memory distortion. The first specific aim is to characterize the functional anatomy of encoding, and test hypotheses concerning the involvement of specific brain regions in encoding variability, repetition priming, and response learning effects. Experiments 1-2 examine encoding manipulations that improve or impair subsequent memory, using techniques that link brain activity during encoding with later memory performance. The 2nd specific aim is to test hypotheses concerning the role of prefrontal cortex in specific aspects of strategic retrieval, which we do in Experiments 3 and 4 by manipulating the usefulness of recollective retrieval strategies. The 3rd specific aim is to characterize the neural underpinnings of true and false memory by testing the hypotheses that true memory, more than false memory, involves reactivation of sensory cortices involved in perceptual encoding, and that sensory reactivation reflects the influence of priming, a form of implicit memory. Experiments 5-10 accomplish this objective by comparing true and false memories, and conscious versus nonconscious recognition, for visual shapes, patterns, and objects. The 4th specific aim is to characterize encoding processes that result in memory errors in which people falsely recognize similar objects as the same ones they previously studied. Experiments 11-12 accomplish these objectives by using experimental procedures that relate particular encoding events to later true and false recognition. The 5th specific aim is to link work on memory distortion with research concerning perception of objects and scenes. Experiments 13 and 14 evaluate hypotheses regarding the role played by regions of parahippocampal cortex involved in contextual associations in false recognition of objects, and Experiment 15 examines the role of this region in boundary extension, where people "remember" aspects of a scene that were not presented in a photograph but are likely to have been present just beyond its borders. The proposed studies will increase our understanding of how memories are constructed, and will also contribute to efforts to improve memory.
Keywords: functional magnetic resonance imaging, memory, neural information processing, brain mapping, memory disorder, performance, visual perception, behavioral /social science research tag, bioimaging /biomedical imaging, clinical research, human subject, young adult human (21-34)
Project start date: 2000-03-15
Project end date: 2010-03-31
2R01MH060941-05A2 (2005): $400346
Daniel L Schacter
Harvard University, 1350 Massachusetts Ave, Cambridge, Ma 02138
Grant 5R37AG008441-20 from National Institute On Aging
Abstract: Memory impairments and subjectivecomplaints of memory loss are among the most common features of cognitive aging. The long-term goals of this project are to facilitate understanding the effects of aging on memory processes, and to provide a basis for developing techniques and interventions that can enhance memory functions of older adults in their everyday lives. The proposed experiments will contribute to these goals by clarifying the effects of aging on source memory (remembering when and where previous experiences occurred)and false memory (inaccuraterecollections). The first specific aim is to evaluate the hypothesis that older adults can use a "distinctiveness heuristic" ¿a strategy whereby participants demand access to distinctive recollections to support a positive memory decision - to reduce robust false recognition effects that are observed after participants study lists of semantically related words or categorized pictures. Experiments 1-6test this hypothesis by manipulating conditions that do or do not allow participants to rely on a distinctiveness heuristic to reduce false recognition. The second specific aim is to extend the distinctiveness heuristic hypothesis to other forms of false recognition. This objective will be accomplished by examining the effects of distinctive encoding in a paradigm where false memory effects are created by repeating new items on a recognition test (Experiments 7-10), and by testing the hypothesis that younger adults will show greater "false recognition reversal" than older adults because the effect depends on memory processes that are impaired in older adults, and cannot be produced by invoking a distinctiveness heuristic (Experiment11-13). The third specific aim is to characterize source memory in older adults and examine its role in the generation and suppression of false memories. To do so, we assess the hypothesis that memory for partial source information is preserved in older adults and can provide a basis for using the distinctiveness heuristic (Experiments 14-16), and also evaluate whether older adults can use a likelihood heuristic to reduce source memory errors (Experiment 17). The fourth specific aim ¿ to evaluate the contribution of conceptual information to age-related increases in false recognition of categorized pictures and novel patterns ¿will be accomplished by attempting to interfere with verbal labeling (Experiment 18) and by manipulating the presence or absence of verbal labels for novel visual patterns (Experiment 19). Taken together, the proposed studies will provide new insights into memory distortions that accompany aging and what can be done to minimize them. 3ERFORMANCE SITE(S) (organization, city, state) Harvard University Cambridge, MA KEY PERSONNEL. See instructions on page 11. Use continuationpages as neededto provide the requiredinformation in the format shown below. Name Organization Role on Project Daniel L. Schacter Harvard University P.I. Chad S.Dodson Harvard University Post-Doctoral Researcher PHS 398(Rev.5/95) Page 2 B B Number pages consecutively at the bottom throughout the application. Do not use suffixes such as 3a, 3b. CC Principal Investj^Br/Program Director (Last, first, middle) ^^Bhacter, Daniel L. Type the name of the principal investigator/program direcraPIFthe top of eachprinted pageand each continuation page. (Fortype specifications, see instructions on page 6.) RESEARCH GRANT TABLE OF CONTENTS Page Numbers Face Page 1 Description,
Keywords: Aged 65 and Over; Aging; Chad; Cities; Cognitive aging; Elderly; Elderly, over 65; Exclusion; Exhibits; Face; Generations; Goals; Human Resources; Instruction; Intervention; Intervention Strategies; Investigators; Label; Life; Link; Manpower; Memory; Memory Deficit; Memory Loss; Memory impairment; Methods and Techniques; Methods, Other; Monitor; Names; Nature; Participant; Pattern; Postdoc; Postdoctoral Fellow; Principal Investigator; Procedures; Programs (PT); Programs [Publication Type]; R01 Mechanism; R01 Program; RPG; Reliance; Research Associate; Research Grants; Research Personnel; Research Project Grants; Research Projects; Research Projects, R-Series; Researchers; Retrieval; Role; Semantic; Semantics; Senescence; Site; Source; Techniques; Testing; Universities; Visual; adult youth; advanced age; age dependent; age difference; age effect; age related; aging effect; base; elders; experience; experiment; experimental research; experimental study; facial; geriatric; heuristics; insight; interventional strategy; late life; later life; memory process; novel; older adult; older person; personnel; post-doc; post-doctoral; programs; research study; response; senescent; senior citizen; social role; tool; young adult
Project start date: 1989-08-04
Project end date: 2011-02-28
Budget start date: 1-APR-2009
Budget end date: 28-FEB-2011
5R37AG008441-20 (2009): $380391
2R37AG008441-11 (2000): $243066
Sponsored Links Excellgen http://Excellgen.com
5R37AG008441-15 (2004): $285072
5R37AG008441-14 (2003): $278619
5R37AG008441-13 (2002): $272352
5R37AG008441-12 (2001): $266269
Daniel L Schacter, Professor
Psychologyharvard University
1350 Massachusetts Ave
cambridge, Ma 02138
Grant 5R01MH045398-03 from National Institute Of Mental Health IRG: PEC
Abstract: Memory for a recent event can be expressed through explicit recollection or inferred from priming effects that need not involve intentional recollection of any previous experience. The latter kind of memory has been referred to as implicit memory. The goals of this project are to deepen and broaden our knowledge of implicit memory, to evaluate empirically relevant theoretical ideas put forward by the investigators, and to bring together ideas and findings concerning the nature of memory and perception. The experiments focus on priming of novel visual objects, and test the idea that such priming effects are mediated by a presemantic structural system that represents information about the global relations among parts of objects. A total of 30 experiments and subexperiments are proposed. In Experiments 1a/b-2a/b, priming is examined with a possible/impossible object decision test, and predictions made by the structural system hypothesis concerning the differential effects of semantic and structural encoding on implicit and explicit memory are evaluated. Experiments 3a/b-4a/b explore conditions under which priming of impossible objects may be obtained. Experiments 5-14 elucidate the nature of the structural descriptions underlying object decision priming using a new type of object decision task, and introduce new analytic paradigms that test the idea that the structural system represents relations among parts with respect to an object´s principal axis. Experiments 15-21 examine object priming in patients with organic amnesia, and provide tests of ideas concerning the neural locus of priming. The proposed research will enrich our knowledge of normal memory processes and also have important implications for understanding preserved and impaired memory functions following brain damage
Keywords: memory, neuropsychology decision making, memory disorder, semantics, visual stimulus human subject, neuropsychological test
Project start date: 1992-09-15
Project end date: 1995-08-31
5R01MH045398-03 (1994): $191086
5R01MH045398-02 (1993): $183738
Daniel L Schacter, Professor
Harvard University 1350 Massachusetts Ave Cambridge, Ma 02138
Grant 5R01AG008441-05 from National Institute On Aging IRG: HUD
Abstract: Memory complaints are extremely common even in the healthy aged. The research proposed herein focusses on age-related deficits in long-term, episodic memory and the encoding, storage, and retrieval mechanisms responsible for them employing concepts and methods developed in the cognitive neuropsychology of amnesia. Theoretical considerations suggest that many age-related memory deficits reflect difficulties in the encoding, or retrieval, of contextual features of events. A total of 18 experiments representing three parallel tracks consisting of six studies each, explore the effects of age on explicit memory for contextual information, implicit memory for contextual information, and the second- order adults depend on the way in which context is assessed? (2) Will the same pattern of results be observed for all problems with one type of results be observed for all types of contextual information or will order adults have special problems with one type of context? (3) Does access to contextual information in older adults depend on the nature of the encoding conditions? (4) Can older adults derive practical benefits from studying information in multiple contexts? The research will provide a better theoretical understanding of memory, and may suggest ways in which age-related memory deficits can be ameliorated.
Keywords: aging, information theory, memory, memory disorder, mental process, neural information processing, human subject, human volunteer subject, psychological test
Project start date: 1989-08-04
Project end date: 1994-10-31
5R01AG008441-05 (1993): $193947
5R01AG008441-04 (1992): $187331
PET STUDIES OF EXPLICIT AND IMPLICIT MEMORY
Daniel L Schacter, Professor
Psychologyharvard University
1350 Massachusetts Ave
cambridge, Ma 02138
Grant 5R01MH057915-03 from National Institute Of Mental Health IRG: PEC
Abstract: Applicant´s ) Memory is a critical component of human cognition, with major implications for everyday life and mental health. However, memory is not a unitary or monolithic entity, but instead consists of a variety of dissociable processes and systems. The proposed experiments use positron emission tomography in an attempt to map the component process and systems involved in explicit memory (conscious recollection of previous experiences) and implicit memory (nonconscious effects of past experiences on subsequent behavior and performance). Within the domain of explicit memory, preliminary data suggest that the hippocampal formation is sometimes associated with the conscious recollection of recent experiences -- successful remembering of an event -- as opposed to strategic efforts to retrieve a recent event. Experiments 1-3 examine this possibility, and also explore the role of prefrontal cortex in explicit retrieval, by using experimental manipulations that provide a basis for distinguishing between, and characterizing the nature of, processes involved in successful remembering on the one hand and effortful retrieval attempts on the other. These experiments also examine the types of retrieved information that are associated with hippocampal blood flow increases, and also explore the role of medial temporal and frontal regions in illusory memories. Experiments 4-6 investigate implicit memory, focusing on the neuroanatomical correlates of visual and auditory priming. These experiments test specific hypotheses about the neural basis of priming that are generated by a theoretical framework developed by the principal investigator. Previous research has revealed that preserved priming and other implicit memory abilities in amnesic patients can provide a basis for developing effective rehabilitation strategies that have significant effects on patients´ everyday lives. The proposed studies will provide new information about the neuroanatomical correlates of implicit memory and thereby contribute to the further development of rehabilitation efforts
Keywords: brain circulation, cerebral circulation, consciousness, memory, neural information processing, neuroanatomy, psychic activity level auditory stimulus, blood flow measurement, cerebrovascular visualization, experience, frontal lobe /cortex, hippocampus, prefrontal lobe /cortex, temporal lobe /cortex, visual stimulus behavior test, clinical research, human subject, positron emission tomography
Project start date: 1998-03-10
Project end date: 2002-02-28
5R01MH057915-03 (2000): $204308
Sponsored Links Excellgen http://Excellgen.com
5R01MH057915-02 (1999): $198356
1R01MH057915-01 (1998): $194741
Daniel L Schacter, Professor
Harvard University 1350 Massachusetts Ave Cambridge, Ma 02138
Grant 5R37AG008441-18 from National Institute On Aging IRG: NSS
Keywords: artificial intelligence, memory, age difference, aging, conditioning, experience, face, insight, reduction, role, semantics, suppression, university, urban area, clinical research
Project start date: 1989-08-04
Project end date: 2010-02-28
5R37AG008441-18 (2007): $369924
5R37AG008441-17 (2006): $371996
4R37AG008441-16 (2005): $466243
5R01AG008441-07 (1996): $196065