Elucidating the Dynamics of Memory

2023 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 19H05646
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (S)
• Allocation Type: Single-year Grants
• Review Section: Broad Section G
• Research Institution: Institute of Physical and Chemical Research
• Principal Investigator: McHugh Thomas 国立研究開発法人理化学研究所, 脳神経科学研究センター, チームリーダー (50553731)
• Project Period (FY): 2019-06-26 – 2024-03-31
• Keywords: hippocampus / memory / engram / cortex / oscillations

Outline of Final Research Achievements

Over the 4 years of funding provided we produced 9 research papers and 2 review articles directly related to the aims of the project. For the first 2 aims these include of an influential invited Perspectives commentary published in Neuron, a research manuscript on how memory encoding neurons are impacted by stress, and papers detailing the impact of both environmental manipulations (stress; Tomar et al, 2021a, 2021b) and genetic manipulations (He et al, 2021; Guan et al 2021, He et al 2022, Adaikkan et al 2024) on local and global memory circuit function. Related to the third aim our 2019 Makino et al study was the first study to establish a physiological signature of behaviorally relevant memory recall based on memory age, as well as the first to lend experimental support to a multistage model of remote memory recall. Under the scope of aim 4 we have published one international collaborative study (Robert et al 2021) in addition to our 2021 He et al Neuron study addressing this topic

Free Research Field

Systems neuroscience

Academic Significance and Societal Importance of the Research Achievements

Our work has advanced the understanding of how brains organize and store information in a distributed network. Further, we have identified mechanisms for the selection and prioritization of specific memory traces, both during consolidation and recall.