The central feature of episodic memory is that each item to be remembered is associated with a specific context?a time, place, and circumstance. According to the BIC model of MTL function (Diana, Ranganath, &Yonelinas, 2007), three regions in the medial temporal lobes (MTL)?the perirhinal cortex (PRc), parahippocampal cortex (PHc), and the hippocampus?make qualitatively different contributions to the encoding of item information, context information, and the binding of items to episodic context, respectively. Alternative MTL models exist, however the BIC model is unique in its focus on differentiating the roles of the PRc and PHc. PHc function is the least well understood of the MTL subregions. The BIC model makes predictions both for the role of PHc in memory and the cognitive relationships between item and context information that can affect memory. This project will test the BIC model's predictions about the cognitive and neural bases of episodic memory.
Specific Aims : 1) To examine the dynamics of episodic information, in particular how cognitive representations are changed as a result of unitization of item and context information. 2) To test the neural hypothesis that PHc and PRc activations are differentially involved in retrieval of context representations and item representations, respectively. 3) To identify the nature of context information represented in the PHc, testing the neural hypothesis that PHc encodes the internal, mental context of an event.

Public Health Relevance

Memory for past events is critical to most of our daily activities. Impairments in episodic memory in psychiatric (e.g. schizophrenia and depression) and neurological (e.g. Alzheimer's Disease) disorders have a debilitating effect on quality of life. Research into the cognitive and neural bases of episodic memory processes can lay the foundation for new diagnostic and therapeutic approaches to these conditions.

Agency
National Institute of Health (NIH)
Institute
National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH)
Type
Research Transition Award (R00)
Project #
4R00MH083945-03
Application #
8305298
Study Section
Special Emphasis Panel (NSS)
Program Officer
Osborn, Bettina D
Project Start
2009-06-20
Project End
2014-05-31
Budget Start
2011-08-26
Budget End
2012-05-31
Support Year
3
Fiscal Year
2011
Total Cost
$248,973
Indirect Cost
Name
Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University
Department
Psychology
Type
Schools of Arts and Sciences
DUNS #
003137015
City
Blacksburg
State
VA
Country
United States
Zip Code
24061
Tu, Hsiao-Wei; Alty, Emma E; Diana, Rachel A (2017) Event-related potentials during encoding: Comparing unitization to relational processing. Brain Res 1667:46-54
O'Neill, Meagan; Diana, Rachel A (2017) The neurocognitive basis of borrowed context information. Cortex 91:89-100
Diana, Rachel A (2017) Parahippocampal Cortex Processes the Nonspatial Context of an Event. Cereb Cortex 27:1808-1816
Wang, Fang; Diana, Rachel A (2017) Neural correlates of temporal context retrieval for abstract scrambled phrases: Reducing narrative and familiarity-based strategies. Brain Res 1655:128-137
Tu, Hsiao-Wei; Diana, Rachel A (2016) Two are not better than one: Combining unitization and relational encoding strategies. J Exp Psychol Learn Mem Cogn 42:114-26
Wang, Fang; Diana, Rachel A (2016) Temporal context processing within hippocampal subfields. Neuroimage 134:261-269
Diana, Rachel A; Yonelinas, Andrew P; Ranganath, Charan (2012) Adaptation to cognitive context and item information in the medial temporal lobes. Neuropsychologia 50:3062-9
Diana, Rachel A; Van den Boom, Wijnand; Yonelinas, Andrew P et al. (2011) ERP correlates of source memory: unitized source information increases familiarity-based retrieval. Brain Res 1367:278-86
Diana, Rachel A; Ranganath, Charan (2011) Recollection, familiarity and memory strength: confusion about confounds. Trends Cogn Sci 15:337-8