Rapid memory systems consolidation and the role of reactivation across brain states

My lab aims to understand how information is encoded and stored in the human brain from a systems level perspective and how different brain states shape this process. This talk will highlight our ongoing research on rapid neocortical learning of declarative information, which stands in stark contrast to the established theories of systems memory consolidation postulating rapid hippocampal memory storage followed by slow reorganization into neocortical circuits. I will explain how combined functional and diffusion-weighted MRI can be used to pinpoint locations of memory engrams in the human brain and show how our data contribute to the idea of distributed memory traces across association as well as sensory cortices. The second part of the talk will discuss how memory reactivation, one of the major processes assumed to underlie neocortical memory formation, during wakefulness or sleep might serve differential or complementary functions. Host: Caspar Schwiedrzik