scholarly journals Episodic–like memory in animals: psychological criteria, neural mechanisms and the value of episodic–like tasks to investigate animal models of neurodegenerative disease

2001 ◽  
Vol 356 (1413) ◽  
pp. 1453-1465 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard G. M. Morris

The question of whether any non–human species displays episodic memory is controversial. Associative accounts of animal learning recognize that behaviour can change in response to single events but this does not imply that animals need or are later able to recall representations of unique events at a different time and place. The lack of language is also relevant, being the usual medium for communicating about the world, but whether it is critical for the capacity to represent and recall events is a separate matter. One reason for suspecting that certain animals possess an episodic–like memory system is that a variety of learning and memory tasks have been developed that, even though they do not meet the strict criteria required for episodic memory, have an ‘episodic–like’ character. These include certain one–trial learning tasks, scene–specific discrimination learning, multiple reversal learning, delayed matching and non–matching tasks and, most recently, tasks demanding recollection of ‘what, where and when’ an event happened. Another reason is that the neuronal architecture of brain areas thought to be involved in episodic memory (including the hippocampal formation) are substantially similar in mammals and, arguably, all vertebrates. Third, our developing understanding of activity–dependent synaptic plasticity (which is a candidate neuronal mechanism for encoding memory traces) suggests that its expression reflects certain physiological characteristics that are ideal components of a neuronal episodic memory system. These include the apparently digital character of synaptic change at individual terminals and the variable persistence of potentiation accounted for by the synaptic tag hypothesis. A further value of studying episodic–like memory in animals is the opportunity it affords to model certain kinds of neurodegenerative disease that, in humans, affect episodic memory. An example is recent work on a transgenic mouse that over–expresses a mutation of human amyloid precursor protein (APP) that occurs in familial Alzheimer's disease, under the control of platelet derived (PD) growth factor promoter (the PDAPP mouse). A striking age– and amyloid plaque–related deficit is seen using a task in which the mice have to keep changing their memory representation of the world rather than learn a single fact.

2005 ◽  
Vol 94 (1) ◽  
pp. 833-844 ◽  
Author(s):  
Edmund T. Rolls ◽  
Jianzhong Xiang ◽  
Leonardo Franco

A fundamental question about the function of the primate including human hippocampus is whether object as well as allocentric spatial information is represented. Recordings were made from single hippocampal formation neurons while macaques performed an object-place memory task that required the monkeys to learn associations between objects and where they were shown in a room. Some neurons (10%) responded differently to different objects independently of location; other neurons (13%) responded to the spatial view independently of which object was present at the location; and some neurons (12%) responded to a combination of a particular object and the place where it was shown in the room. These results show that there are separate as well as combined representations of objects and their locations in space in the primate hippocampus. This is a property required in an episodic memory system, for which associations between objects and the places where they are seen are prototypical. The results thus provide an important advance by showing that a requirement for a human episodic memory system, separate and combined neuronal representations of objects and where they are seen “out there” in the environment, is present in the primate hippocampus.


2019 ◽  
Vol 42 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nazim Keven

Abstract Hoerl & McCormack argue that animals cannot represent past situations and subsume animals’ memory-like representations within a model of the world. I suggest calling these memory-like representations as what they are without beating around the bush. I refer to them as event memories and explain how they are different from episodic memory and how they can guide action in animal cognition.


2018 ◽  
Vol 41 ◽  
Author(s):  
Roland G. Benoit ◽  
Ruud M. W. J. Berkers ◽  
Philipp C. Paulus

AbstractThe episodic memory system allows us to experience the emotions of past, counterfactual, and prospective events. We outline how this phenomenological experience can convey motivational incentives for farsighted decisions. In this way, we challenge important arguments for Mahr & Csibra's (M&C's) conclusion that future-oriented mental time travel is unlikely to be a central function of episodic memory.


Author(s):  
David Morgan

Neurodegenerative diseases are a growing health concern through the world as gains in longevity result in an increased population at risk of these age-related disorders. Unfortunately no disease modifying treatments exist for these disorders. Over the last three decades enormous insights have been gained into the causes of these disorders. One approach to treating these diseases is to direct immunotherapy against the misfolded proteins that accumulate within the brains of those with neurodegenerative disease in an attempt to clear the accumulating proteins and slow or prevent expression of the disease. This chapter summarizes the recent (and frustrating) experience with anti-Aβ‎ immunotherapy to treat mild to moderate Alzheimer’s disease, and holds hope that newer generation antibodies and treating presymptomatic disease will have greater impact. In addition, it reviews the preclinical data regarding approaches to treating tau, synuclein, and prion disorders, all of which demonstrate consistent effects in mice and cultured neurons.


2019 ◽  
Vol 70 ◽  
pp. 08023
Author(s):  
Rimma Kumysheva

A model of students’ cognitive activity in the context of interaction with the world is presented. The model is based on cognitive and humanistic personality theories. The relevance of the model is confirmed by the need to increase personal activity in society in order to manage problem situations in it. The model includes levels of learning tasks, professional activity imitations and solving real problems, which allows consistent professional and personal development of students. The advantages of this model are the continuous students’ interaction with the world, which increases their social and practical activity, as well as the value of education in a changing world. The model will be able to form the students’ ability to correlate their knowledge and practical experience with problems in reality.


2019 ◽  
Vol 74 (7) ◽  
pp. 1086-1100 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marie St-Laurent ◽  
Bradley R Buchsbaum

Abstract Objectives Aging can reduce the specificity with which memory episodes are represented as distributed patterns of brain activity. It remains unclear, however, whether repeated encoding and retrieval of stimuli modulate this decline. Memory repetition is thought to promote semanticization, a transformative process during which episodic memory becomes gradually decontextualized and abstracted. Because semantic memory is considered more resilient to aging than context-rich episodic memory, we hypothesized that repeated retrieval would affect cortical reinstatement differently in young versus older adults. Methods We reanalyzed data from young and older adults undergoing functional magnetic resonance imaging while repeatedly viewing and recalling short videos. We derived trial-unique multivariate measures of similarity between video-specific brain activity patterns elicited at perception and at recall, which we compared between age groups at each repetition. Results With repetition, memory representation became gradually more distinct from perception in young adults, as reinstatement specificity converged downward toward levels observed in the older group. In older adults, alternative representations that were item-specific but orthogonal to patterns elicited at perception became more salient with repetition. Discussion Repetition transformed dominant patterns of memory representation away and orthogonally from perception in young and older adults, respectively. Although distinct, both changes are consistent with repetition-induced semanticization.


2009 ◽  
Vol 35 (1) ◽  
pp. 86-104 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bradford C Dickerson ◽  
Howard Eichenbaum

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Espen Langnes ◽  
Markus H. Sneve ◽  
Donatas Sederevicius ◽  
Inge K. Amlien ◽  
Kristine B Walhovd ◽  
...  

AbstractThere is evidence for a hippocampal long axis anterior-posterior (AP) differentiation in memory processing, which may have implications for the changes in episodic memory performance typically seen across development and aging. The hippocampal formation shows substantial structural changes with age, but the lifespan trajectories of hippocampal sub-regions along the AP axis are not established. The aim of the present study was to test whether the micro- and macro-structural age-trajectories of the anterior (aHC) and posterior (pHC) hippocampus are different. In a single-center longitudinal study, 1790 cognitively healthy participants, 4.1-93.4 years of age, underwent a total of 3367 MRI examinations and 3033 memory tests sessions over 1-6 time points, spanning an interval up to 11.1 years. T1-weighted scans were used to estimate the volume of aHC and pHC, and diffusion tensor imaging to measure mean diffusion (MD) within each region. We found that the macro- and microstructural lifespan-trajectories of aHC and pHC were clearly distinguishable, with partly common and partly unique variance shared with age. aHC showed a protracted period of microstructural development, while pHC microstructural development as indexed by MD was more or less completed in early childhood. In contrast, pHC showed larger unique aging-related changes. A similar aHC – pHC difference was observed for volume, although not as evident as for microstructure. All sub-regions showed age-dependent relationships to episodic memory function. For aHC micro- and macrostructure, the relationships to verbal memory performance varied significantly with age, being stronger among the older participants. Future research should disentangle the relationship between these structural properties and different memory processes – encoding vs. retrieval in particular – across the lifespan.


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