Staresina Bernhard P, Davachi Lila
Department of Psychology, New York University, New York, NY 10003, USA.
Neuron. 2009 Jul 30;63(2):267-76. doi: 10.1016/j.neuron.2009.06.024.
A fundamental goal in memory research is to understand what class of learning problem the hippocampus is uniquely designed to solve. While much controversy surrounds the particular types of memories the hippocampus is thought to support, one hypothesized function possibly linking divergent frameworks is the capacity to bind mnemonic representations across spatial and temporal gaps in our experience. In our current functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) study, we systematically controlled the extent to which a target and an event detail have to be integrated across spatiotemporal discontiguities during associative memory formation. Although the encoding task, the type of association, and subsequent memory performance were held constant, engagement of the hippocampus during successful associative binding was directly modulated by increases in spatial and temporal discontiguities across episodic elements. These results suggest that a core mnemonic function of the hippocampus is to bridge representational gaps in our experience.
记忆研究的一个基本目标是了解海马体被独特设计用于解决哪一类学习问题。尽管围绕海马体被认为支持的特定类型记忆存在诸多争议，但一个可能将不同框架联系起来的假设功能是在我们的经验中跨越空间和时间间隙绑定记忆表征的能力。在我们当前的功能磁共振成像（fMRI）研究中，我们系统地控制了在联想记忆形成过程中目标与事件细节必须跨越时空不连续性进行整合的程度。尽管编码任务、联想类型以及随后的记忆表现保持不变，但在成功的联想绑定过程中海马体的参与直接受到跨情节元素的空间和时间不连续性增加的调节。这些结果表明，海马体的一个核心记忆功能是弥合我们经验中的表征间隙。
