NSF/BSF: New Approaches to Understanding and Enhancing Human Learning and Memory Consolidation

This project addresses the human ability to acquire new knowledge and remember it later, an ability that all-to-often falters. What allows some memories to be maintained in an enduring and accurate way so they can be retrieved when needed? Scientists have discovered that a process of memory consolidation transforms memory storage in the brain.

As each new memory is acquired, it is integrated with existing information in order to be stored effectively. When consolidation works well, we are each endowed with a large set of memories that we can rely on daily. To understand it better, we need to observe the brain events that underlie consolidation.

This project uses several state-of-the-art methods to manipulate brain activity in ways that can clarify the steps of memory consolidation. New knowledge about the brain mechanisms that underlie learning and stable memory in the human brain is vital for many applications. Efficient knowledge acquisition is at the core of education, and also the driving force for innovation.

Many people, especially the elderly, experience difficulties in learning and remembering that require new approaches to enhance their cognitive skills. A comprehensive understanding of learning is needed to optimize it in all these circumstances and allow for practical interventions to improve learning and memory. This project advances an understanding of how people store and remember valuable information, particularly with respect to offline processing accomplished by the brain—both when we are awake and when we are asleep—over the time period between initial exposure to new information and later recall.

The focus of this project is spatial memory, a type of memory of great ecological importance and a prime example of memory storage, involving two key brain regions, the cerebral cortex and the hippocampus. The experiments reinforce the link between consolidation and a specific measure of brain activity known as theta, a slow brain oscillation apparent and measurable in an electroencephalogram (EEG)– a measure of dynamic brain activity.

Parallel neuroimaging studies measuring the spatial landscape of brain activity also link memory consolidation with brain connectivity. Participants learn locations of objects displayed on a screen, and later must recall these locations. Prior to memory testing, different experimental interventions that affect memory consolidation are applied: electromagnetic stimulation, sensory entrainment, neurofeedback training, and partial cues to reinstate learned information.

Subsequent recall of the critical spatial information is linked to brain measures altered through these interventions, particularly EEG oscillations in the theta band, hippocampal activation, and hippocampal-cortical connectivity. This project deepens our understanding of memory consolidation by linking memory to neural observations of brain rhythms, activations, and connectivity.

The results will animate new perspectives on how new memories are preserved in the human brain and may lead to new techniques to enhance human learning and memory in the young and old. This project engages joint international activities among neuroscientists through the NSF-BSF (National Science Foundation – Israel Binational Science Foundation) collaboration.

This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.