CCN talk on September 12, 2014

Loren Frank

University of California, San Francisco

Neural substrates of memories and decisions

Time: 4:00-5:00

Location: Moore Hall, B03

Abstract

The hippocampus is a brain structure known to be critical for forming and retrieving memories for the experiences of daily life, but the specific patterns of neural activity that support memory formation and retrieval remain unclear. In this talk I will discuss work from my laboratory that links a specific pattern of hippocampal place cell activity to the ability to use past experience to guide behavior. We have shown that hippocampal replay events can reactivate patterns of brain activity from a previous experience in awake animals and that disrupting these events interferes with learning and memory-guided decision-making. We have also found that the intensity of replay activity is predictive of whether an upcoming choice will be correct or incorrect. Finally, we have begun to examine the impact of these hippocampal events on neocortical activity, and we find broad engagement of cortical circuits specific to replay events. Taken together, these results lead us to propose that the awake replay of place cell sequences plays a role in deliberative processes that are important for memory-guided decision making.