The goal of this project, led by a new investigator at the University of Texas, is to understand the conditions by which poor learning can be transformed into a durable memory, with the ultimate goal of improving educational outcomes. The project leverages groundbreaking behavioral neuroscience research in rodents showing that weak memories can be enhanced through exposure to novelty around the time of learning. It is known that novelty exposure stimulates the molecular and cellular processes involved in long-term memory formation. Remarkably, there is now strong evidence in laboratory animals that novelty exposure can be used as a tool to stabilize other, poorly formed, memories learned around the time of novelty exposure. This idea that novelty exposure retroactively strengthens memory for prior experiences has challenged common assumptions about how animals learn and remember information. It also raises a host of intriguing and important questions on how to harness novelty exposure in humans to improve memory for information that is prone to forgetting. A series of behavioral, psychophysiological, and neuroimaging experiments will attempt to address the parameters by which novelty can be used as a tool to rescue weak learning. The project will culminate in a study of conceptual learning in such fields as biology and geoscience The ultimate goal of this research is to develop innovative and inexpensive tools for promoting learning and memory in real-world settings. Alongside the research project is a plan for public outreach to students and the local community, mentorship, and a plan to develop collaborations with educational researchers to ultimately translate research findings to improve learning performance in authentic educational settings. The project is supported by a CAREER award to the University of Texas by the EHR Core Research (ECR) program, which supports work that advances the fundamental research literature on STEM learning.
This project attempts to translate the concept of 'behavioral tagging,' which was discovered in rodent behavioral neuroscience, to humans. Behavioral tagging is based on a neurobiological model of long-term memory (known as 'synaptic tagging') which details how weak synaptic potentiation creates the conditions for a long-term memory, but only if weak potentiation is accompanied by stronger synaptic potentiation within a critical time window. Behavioral tagging extends this neurobiological model to the realm of behavior by showing that suboptimal learning can be rescued by a separate and more salient experience after learning. Novelty exposure is often utilized as this separate and more salient experience, as it is well-known that novelty induces long-term potentiation in the hippocampus, releases dopamine to the hippocampus via the midbrain, and upregulates plasticity related genes. Thus, novelty exposure may be a valuable tool to stimulate memory formation for other information learned around the same time. Indeed, rodent studies show that poorly formed hippocampal-dependent memories are transformed into durable long-term memories if learning is accompanied by subsequent exposure to a novel open field. This project will test the behavioral tagging hypothesis in humans. It will be discovered whether novelty exposure can improve a host of hippocampal-dependent memories including spatial memory, contextual fear conditioning, pattern separation, memory integration, and learning and transfer of educationally-relevant material. The goal is to gain insight on whether and how novelty enhances poorly formed memories in humans, with the ultimate goal of discovering straightforward, inexpensive, and innovative tools to improve STEM learning.
This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.
