Episodic memory provides a means by which we reflect on the past, make decisions about the future, and form a learned identity. Episodic memory depends on the hippocampus as well as on the distributed set of regions that form a hippocampal-cortical network (HCN), including medial prefrontal, posterior cingulate, and medial...
In susceptible individuals, episodic memories of overwhelmingly stressful experiences can give rise to debilitating socio-affective symptoms, including social dysfunction. This occurs even when such memories are not easily accessed for retrieval. In this case, it is generally accepted that the restricted retrieval of such memories is due to their having...
Maneuvering your limbs requires both accurate commands for how to move, and accurate feedback of their true movements. Conventional prosthetic arms currently lack this sense of proprioceptive feedback, which can make daily tasks difficult without close visual monitoring. Although studies have successfully provided artificial proprioceptive feedback to improve control, this...
To survive, animals, including human beings, have developed an amazing ability to learn the constantly changing environment. Specifically, detecting specific odorants in a noisy, variable background is crucial for finding food and water, mating, and avoiding potential dangers. For this purpose, rodents have developed an olfactory system that is powerful...
Rhythmic fluctuations of electrical activity in the brain provide insights into the proposed mechanism by which we encode experiences and then maintain, forget, modify, and retrieve them. Yet there is still much to learn about how neural oscillations relate to memory function. The purpose of this research is to discover...
Decision making is an essential and indispensable element in everyday life. It is posited that parallel, distinct systems subserving deliberative, goal-directed control and automatic, habitual control underlie decision making. Computational accounts suggest that model-based and model-free learning strategies give rise to these two systems respectively. The model-based system is a...
Neurodegenerative diseases (NDs) commonly involve the accumulation and aggregation of neurotoxic proteins that impair and ultimately destroy specific neurons. Considerable evidence from human and animal studies indicates that many NDs show disrupted circadian and sleep as symptoms. Yet little is known about the molecular mechanisms by which genes cause NDs...
This thesis focuses on the development of a cochlear implant (CI) that uses photons to stimulate surviving auditory neurons in severe-to-profoundly deaf individuals. The benefit of optical over electrical stimulation is its spatial selectivity with the potential to create significantly more independent channels to encode acoustic information and likely enhances...
Birds such as the barn owl and zebra finch are known for their remarkable hearing abilities that are critical for survival, communication and vocal learning functions. A key to achieving these hearing abilities is the speed and precision required for the temporal coding of sound; a process heavily dependent on...
Identifying key molecular mechanisms and targets for therapeutic development in sporadic neurodegenerative diseases has been challenging. Therefore, in-depth investigation of genetic forms of disease can provide valuable insight into pathogenic disease mechanisms. The discovery of genetic forms of Parkinson’s disease (PD) has highlighted the importance of the autophagy/lysosomal and mitochondrial/oxidative...