Descripción del proyecto
La dinámica del almacenamiento de la memoria funcional
La memoria funcional nos ayuda a recordar cosas. Resulta esencial para el funcionamiento de la mente y puede retener, de forma temporal, una cantidad reducida de información, como un número de teléfono o la lista de la compra. A pesar de su capacidad limitada, ofrece un uso mental inmediato de cualquier cognición superior humana, lo que permite efectuar tareas conceptuales como la toma de decisiones complejas. El mecanismo implicado, la topografía de su distribución en el encéfalo y cómo el almacenamiento distribuido está organizado de forma espaciotemporal para gestionar la información todavía requieren una explicación. Al combinar la imagenología funcional, la electroencefalografía o la magnetoencefalografía y las grabaciones neuronales no invasivas, el proyecto financiado con fondos europeos DeepStore llevará a cabo investigaciones experimentales sobre las bases neurológicas de la memoria funcional para descifrar su naturaleza dinámica multicapa hasta el nivel de célula única.
Objetivo
Working memory excels in keeping ready the momentary contents of all of human higher cognition despite being strictly limited in storage capacity. How the brain accomplishes this feat, beyond the temporary maintenance of just experienced information, is hardly understood. An emerging view suggests that working memory storage is topographically distributed according to the information’s endogenous level of abstraction. However, very little is known about how such distributed storage is orchestrated spatiotemporally, that is, how representations at different levels of abstraction are structured dynamically in time to suit current demands.
In DeepStore, we use tailored experimental designs and newly developed multivariate analysis techniques to explore for the first time directly the depth-dimension of working memory storage, in terms of dynamic levels of abstraction. Combining functional imaging, magneto-/electroencephalography, and invasive neural recordings will make it possible to track levels of abstraction spatiotemporally, with millisecond precision.
In three ambitious experimental series, DeepStore will shed new light on long-standing open questions about working memory storage, including how it is modulated by attention, inattention, and distraction, and how multiple contents are stored simultaneously. The work will shape a new theory of the neurocognitive capacity limit in working memory. We will further test novel hypotheses about how working memory interfaces with long-term memory, and how it develops over the lifespan. Finally, we will combine our innovative human neuroimaging approach with direct electrophysiological recordings in non-human primates during the same task, to disclose the fine-grained neural mechanisms of dynamic abstraction down to the single-cell level. DeepStore is anticipated to provide fundamentally new insights into the dynamic and multi-layered nature of working memory, beyond the number and precision of items it can hold.
Ámbito científico
Programa(s)
Régimen de financiación
ERC-COG - Consolidator GrantInstitución de acogida
80539 Munchen
Alemania