The hippocampus, sleep and memory consolidation (360G-Wellcome-101759_Z_13_A)

£155,877

My first goal is to provide a unified and mechanistic account of how the hippocampus supports episodic memory, imagining the future and spatial navigation. I will leverage this long-standing question by eschewing traditional notions regarding the architecture of memory and instead invoke the idea that scenes are central to hippocampal information-processing. This new direction is motivated by my recent discovery that the hippocampus is constantly constructing scenes; automatically anticipating and synthesising representations of the world beyond the immediate sensorium. I will characterise the precise relationship between scenes and hippocampal function, and then establish whether an inability to construct scenes explains impairments in memory, imagination and navigation arising from hippocampal pathology. Capitalising on newly-developed fMRI methods, I recently identified neural signatures of specific recent and remote episodic memories. My second goal is to exploit this new l ine of investigation to determine the exact timescale of hippocampal involvement in episodic memory, a key issue which currently lacks consensus. My third goal is to definitively establish what aspects of hippocampal processing are distinct from neighbouring brain areas, specifically the parahippocampal and retrosplenial cortices. Informed by my recent advances, my strategy abjures the common view that these regions are 'scene-selective' by instead identifying their most basic functions to elucidate their differential contributions to memory. Overall, this new extension of my research could release the hippocampus and related brain regions from currently constrained accounts of their function, with the ambition to provide a theoretically enriched understanding of their fundamental roles and their breakdown in pathology.

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Grant Details

Amount Awarded 155877
Applicant Surname Maguire
Approval Committee Science Enhancement Committee
Award Date 2015-12-07T00:00:00+00:00
Financial Year 2015/16
Grant Programme: Title Enhancement
Internal ID 101759/Z/13/A
Lead Applicant Prof Eleanor Maguire
Partnership Value 155877
Planned Dates: End Date 2018-09-30T00:00:00+00:00
Planned Dates: Start Date 2016-10-01T00:00:00+00:00
Recipient Org: Country United Kingdom
Region Greater London