72nd CiNet Monthly Seminar: Edwin Robertson “Sharing information between human memory systems”

CiNet Monthly Seminar

December 5, 2024
16:00-17:00 (JST)
at CiNet Conference Room in the CiNet bldg.

“Sharing information between human memory systems”

Edwin Robertson
Professor
School of Psychology & Neuroscience
University of Glasgow, UK

Host : Nobuhiro Hagura

Segregation is a biological motif. Different types of ions are separated across membranes and different types of information are separated across different memory systems (actions vs. words). However, a breakdown in segregation is critical for life.
Ion gradients collapse creating electrical impulses, critical for beating hearts and thinking minds, while different types of memory interact, which allows information to be exchanged. Declarative knowledge prevents the processing of a motor skill through an inhibition, which when relieved enables motor skill processing to continue.
This provides a mechanism to control memory fate. The breakdown of segregation also allows highly complex information to be shared between memories. This occurs when sequences have a common serial structure. Sharing this common structure enables an action sequence to enhance learning of a sequence of words (a word-list; and also vice-versa). Knowledge can then be applied flexibly in very different situations (generalization) and done so in a highly efficient way (both computationally and energetically) because sharing prevents the need to replicate information across systems. What enables this breakdown in segregation and the sharing of highly complex information is poorly understood. The state of a prefrontal circuit (predominance of different oscillations) may regulate the breakdown in segregation, while the formation of a representation to translate between different memory types may allow complex information to be shared. Placing these emerging insights into a wider cortical and computational circuit may (in time) reveal how common information is shared between different memory systems, provide a new perspective on memory organization, and reveal how generalization is achieved.