Foreknowledge about what will happen, when it will happen, and where it will happen, can help an organism find food and avoid predators. Preparatory responses use this foreknowledge to ready sensory and motor systems. Recent findings from neurophysiology and neuroimaging suggest that portions of the posterior parietal cortex (PPC) may function as a preparatory region. For instance, neurons in the monkey PPC region respond as though signaling the re-emergence of a briefly occluded moving target. Other studies have shown that cells in the PPC begin to fire seconds before a monkey looks a certain direction or reaches a certain direction. However, the functionality of the PPC is disputed because many studies have reported that various other tasks - attention, working memory, shape processing - also depend on the PPC. In this grant we advance the hypothesis that the PPC is importantly involved in linking sensory and motor signals in preparation to act.
In Aim 1 we address the relationship of preparatory responses to working memory.
In Aim 2 the relationship of sensory expectations to motor expectations is examined to gain some understanding of both the generality and specificity of preparatory processing. Last of all, in Aim 3 we do a finer grained analysis of preparatory processing by asking whether activity in the IPS is sensitive to the value of a preparatory cue. These questions will be addressed through functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS), and behavioral experimentation.

Agency
National Institute of Health (NIH)
Institute
National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH)
Type
Research Project (R01)
Project #
1R01MH071615-01A1
Application #
6917444
Study Section
Cognition and Perception Study Section (CP)
Program Officer
Anderson, Kathleen C
Project Start
2005-04-01
Project End
2009-12-31
Budget Start
2005-04-01
Budget End
2005-12-31
Support Year
1
Fiscal Year
2005
Total Cost
$253,600
Indirect Cost
Name
University of Pennsylvania
Department
Psychology
Type
Schools of Arts and Sciences
DUNS #
042250712
City
Philadelphia
State
PA
Country
United States
Zip Code
19104
Hower, Kylie H; Wixted, John; Berryhill, Marian E et al. (2014) Impaired perception of mnemonic oldness, but not mnemonic newness, after parietal lobe damage. Neuropsychologia 56:409-17
Berryhill, Marian E; Richmond, Lauren L; Shay, Cara S et al. (2012) Shifting attention among working memory representations: testing cue type, awareness, and strategic control. Q J Exp Psychol (Hove) 65:426-38
Berryhill, Marian E; Chein, Jason; Olson, Ingrid R (2011) At the intersection of attention and memory: the mechanistic role of the posterior parietal lobe in working memory. Neuropsychologia 49:1306-1315
Richmond, Lauren L; Morrison, Alexandra B; Chein, Jason M et al. (2011) Working memory training and transfer in older adults. Psychol Aging 26:813-22
Berryhill, Marian E; Picasso, Lauren; Arnold, Robert et al. (2010) Similarities and differences between parietal and frontal patients in autobiographical and constructed experience tasks. Neuropsychologia 48:1385-93
Olson, Ingrid R; Berryhill, Marian E; Drowos, David B et al. (2010) A calendar savant with episodic memory impairments. Neurocase 16:208-18
Drowos, David B; Berryhill, Marian; Andre, Jessica M et al. (2010) True memory, false memory, and subjective recollection deficits after focal parietal lobe lesions. Neuropsychology 24:465-75
Ross, Lars A; Olson, Ingrid R (2010) Social cognition and the anterior temporal lobes. Neuroimage 49:3452-62
Olson, Ingrid R; Berryhill, Marian (2009) Some surprising findings on the involvement of the parietal lobe in human memory. Neurobiol Learn Mem 91:155-65
Berryhill, Marian E; Drowos, David B; Olson, Ingrid R (2009) Bilateral parietal cortex damage does not impair associative memory for paired stimuli. Cogn Neuropsychol 26:606-19

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