Brain meeting: Daniel Barry
24 January 2020, 3:15 pm–4:15 pm

Hippocampal-prefrontal dynamics supporting memory and imagination
This event is free.
Event Information
Open to
- All
Cost
- Free
Organiser
-
Justyna Ekert, Elisa van der Plas and Gabrielle Sheehan
Location
-
4th floor seminar room, WCHN12 Queen SquareQueen SquareLondonWC1N 3ARUnited Kingdom
Brain meeting
The mental construction of both personally-experienced events and novel scenarios recruits the hippocampus and prefrontal cortex. As memories age, they become increasingly dependent upon the prefrontal cortex. This talk will first demonstrate the temporal profile of this recruitment by using high-resolution fMRI to detect the neural representations of real-world autobiographical memories. Memory retrieval is supported by functional connectivity between the prefrontal cortex and hippocampus. Using MEG, I will show evidence that a similar interplay exists during the imagination of novel scenes. I will then present a novel perspective on the role of the hippocampus in memory retrieval which accommodates its role in other cognitive functions such as imagination. Finally, I will present new data revealing an association between hippocampal subregion size and individual differences in memory reconstruction ability. In summary, the mental construction of events by the hippocampus and prefrontal cortex is a highly dynamic process which evolves over time
There will be coffee, tea and cake in the conservatory directly after the talk.