Program Director/Principal Investigator (Last, First, Mlddle): Howard, Marc PROJECT SUMMARY (See lnstrucUons): In recent years, the role of the hippocampal place cell system in constructing a .. map of a spatial environment has received a great deal of attention, including a Nobel Prize In 2014. However, a close examination of the firing of neurons in the place cell system reveals a more general function, providing a map of memory space that includes information not only about spatial coordinates, but also about objects in space and reward contingencies. Moreover, empirical work suggests that the hippocampal theta rhythm provides a mechanism for animals to imagine possible future paths to construct appropriate decisions. Using a combination of empirical work, advanced data analyses and computational modeling, this proposal develops a hypothesis for how the hippocampus and frontal cortex cooperate to navigate this general memory space to inform future behavior. Studies of amnesia patients have made it clear that the hippocampus is important in both memory for the past and imagination for the future. Although a great deal is known about the spatial responsiveness of place cells in the hippocampus, it is not clear how those findings bear on the question of memory-the primary cognitive function of the hippocampus. This proposal builds bridges between the spatial function of the hippocampus and memory by building a computational model for both memory for the past and imagination of the future in a general memory space. The project bridges levels of decription from behavior, to an abstract mathematical framework, to systems neuroscience. Advanced data analytic techniques will be used to test specific predictions of the computational model regarding changes in firing rate and firing relative to ongoing theta oscillations. Finally a novel series of experiments will build a bridge in our understanding of the cooperative role of the hippocampus and orbitofrontal cortex in remembering the past and anticipating the future.
The proposed research may shed new light on disorders associated with changes in temporal discounting, including addiction, ADHD, schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. Moreover, because the computational model relates low-level neurophysiological phenomena with a cognitive-level function, this approach may enable us to better anticipate the effect of pharmacological agents on cognition.
| Mau, William; Sullivan, David W; Kinsky, Nathaniel R et al. (2018) The Same Hippocampal CA1 Population Simultaneously Codes Temporal Information over Multiple Timescales. Curr Biol 28:1499-1508.e4 |
| Howard, Marc W (2018) Memory as Perception of the Past: Compressed Time inMind and Brain. Trends Cogn Sci 22:124-136 |
| Howard, Marc W; Shankar, Karthik H (2018) Neural scaling laws for an uncertain world. Psychol Rev 125:47-58 |
| Singh, Inder; Tiganj, Zoran; Howard, Marc W (2018) Is working memory stored along a logarithmic timeline? Converging evidence from neuroscience, behavior and models. Neurobiol Learn Mem 153:104-110 |
| Folkerts, Sarah; Rutishauser, Ueli; Howard, Marc W (2018) Human Episodic Memory Retrieval Is Accompanied by a Neural Contiguity Effect. J Neurosci 38:4200-4211 |
| Tiganj, Zoran; Jung, Min Whan; Kim, Jieun et al. (2017) Sequential Firing Codes for Time in Rodent Medial Prefrontal Cortex. Cereb Cortex 27:5663-5671 |
| Howard, Marc W (2017) Temporal and spatial context in the mind and brain. Curr Opin Behav Sci 17:14-19 |
| Salz, Daniel M; Tiganj, Zoran; Khasnabish, Srijesa et al. (2016) Time Cells in Hippocampal Area CA3. J Neurosci 36:7476-84 |
