Autobiographical memory - people's memory for events from their lives - is a basis of judgments they make about their future behavior, what they report in their medical histories, and what they use in many forms of psychotherapy and everyday life. Its malfunction is a presenting symptom in Alzheimer's disease, posttraumatic stress disorder, closed head injury, and nearly all forms of general memory loss. To date, studies of the neural basis of autobiographical, or episodic, memory have generally relied on materials learned in the laboratory with minimal emotional involvement, a highly controlled and simple sensory environment, over one very short time interval, and in one location. Thus, many of the factors known behaviorally to have profound effects on memory (i.e., emotional intensity, sensory input, and spatial and temporal context) are not varied enough at learning to have effects that can be observed at recall, providing a limited view of the brain systems involved in memory for real-world events. In the proposed studies, these factors are varied in realistic ways at encoding and their effects on the neural basis of recall are probed using functional magnetic resonance imaging. Three different kinds of tasks will be used to investigate the neural correlates of autobiographical memory: (1) recall of personal life events given various word cues, (2) recognition of digital photographs which participants take in the field or study in the laboratory, and (3) cued recognition of staged events. Variations in visual imagery processes, emotional content, and spatiotemporal contextual information will be measured at encoding and mapped onto their associated processing regions in the brain. New insight will be gained into the network components activated at different stages of memory retrieval, including the search and production of the memory and the monitoring of its accuracy and appropriateness. The proposed research will advance knowledge about the brain systems involved in retrieving information about autobiographical events by bridging between memory for real-world events and memory for laboratory stimuli. ? ?

Agency
National Institute of Health (NIH)
Institute
National Institute on Aging (NIA)
Type
Research Project (R01)
Project #
5R01AG023123-03
Application #
7118284
Study Section
Special Emphasis Panel (ZRG1-BBBP-D (02))
Program Officer
Wagster, Molly V
Project Start
2004-09-15
Project End
2009-08-31
Budget Start
2006-09-01
Budget End
2007-08-31
Support Year
3
Fiscal Year
2006
Total Cost
$304,521
Indirect Cost
Name
Duke University
Department
Psychology
Type
Schools of Arts and Sciences
DUNS #
044387793
City
Durham
State
NC
Country
United States
Zip Code
27705
St Jacques, Peggy L; Kragel, Philip A; Rubin, David C (2013) Neural networks supporting autobiographical memory retrieval in posttraumatic stress disorder. Cogn Affect Behav Neurosci 13:554-66
St Jacques, Peggy L; Rubin, David C; Cabeza, Roberto (2012) Age-related effects on the neural correlates of autobiographical memory retrieval. Neurobiol Aging 33:1298-310
St Jacques, Peggy L; Botzung, Anne; Miles, Amanda et al. (2011) Functional neuroimaging of emotionally intense autobiographical memories in post-traumatic stress disorder. J Psychiatr Res 45:630-7
St Jacques, Peggy L; Kragel, Philip A; Rubin, David C (2011) Dynamic neural networks supporting memory retrieval. Neuroimage 57:608-16
Botzung, Anne; Rubin, David C; Miles, Amanda et al. (2010) Mental hoop diaries: emotional memories of a college basketball game in rival fans. J Neurosci 30:2130-7
Botzung, Anne; Labar, Kevin S; Kragel, Philip et al. (2010) Component Neural Systems for the Creation of Emotional Memories during Free Viewing of a Complex, Real-World Event. Front Hum Neurosci 4:34
St Jacques, Peggy; Dolcos, Florin; Cabeza, Roberto (2010) Effects of aging on functional connectivity of the amygdala during negative evaluation: a network analysis of fMRI data. Neurobiol Aging 31:315-27
St Jacques, Peggy L; Dolcos, Florin; Cabeza, Roberto (2009) Effects of aging on functional connectivity of the amygdala for subsequent memory of negative pictures: a network analysis of functional magnetic resonance imaging data. Psychol Sci 20:74-84
St Jacques, Peggy; Rubin, David C; LaBar, Kevin S et al. (2008) The short and long of it: neural correlates of temporal-order memory for autobiographical events. J Cogn Neurosci 20:1327-41
Skotko, Brian G; Rubin, David C; Tupler, Larry A (2008) H.M.'s personal crossword puzzles: understanding memory and language. Memory 16:89-96

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