This research investigates the role of the hippocampus in memory and learning of sequence processing and the nature of the cortical interactions. It has long been known from studies with Amnesia patients that hippocampus is important for learning new memories and consolidation for long-term memory. From studies with rodents it is also known that the hipppocampus is important for learning task are dependent on context in a flexible and unconstrained manner. The main questions we are asking is: What is the nature of , hippocampus activity and of the interaction with cortex. The biologically plausible model of the CA3 region of the hippocampus has already been shown capable of learning temporal associations for sequence prediction, sequence disambiguation, and transitive inference tasks. The model will be augmented to simulate the cortical teaching function of the hippocampus in the context known paradigms, such as trace conditioning, to explore how reciprocal interaction may lead to enhanced time-spanning abilities, potential for chunking associated elements, and development of synchronous activity across neural systems.
| Rodriguez, Paul; Levy, William B (2004) Configural representations in transverse patterning with a hippocampal model. Neural Netw 17:175-90 |
| Rodriguez, P; Levy, W B (2001) A model of hippocampal activity in trace conditioning: where's the trace? Behav Neurosci 115:1224-38 |
