Brain Areas Involved in the Retrieval of Updated Memories : The Long-Term Effects
Year: 2010
Type: dissertation
Abstract: When we learn something new, we have to update our memory. The new information is stored together with the old and by doing this some of the old information might destroyed. The questions I wanted to answer were what brain areas are activated by the retrieval of symbols associated with either a sound or a face and if any residual activation would be found for the old associations (when association was changed during training) even though it had been 18 months since the last study was conducted. 11 participants were included, 5 females, 6 males between the ages of 23-29 (mean 24.67). Data was collected using fMRI. In an earlier study (Stiernstedt, 2009) participants had studied a symbol-sound or symbol-face combination. After two, of a total of five days, half of the symbol associations changed (faces to sounds and vice verse). The same symbols and associations were used here. The results showed activation in fusiform gyrus for faces and primary and secondary auditory cortex for sounds, residual activation was found in secondary visual cortex for faces and secondary auditory cortex for sounds. This implicates that the same areas involved with encoding the information is also involved in retrieving it and that the old information is not deleted but still accessible.
Author: Maria Öhlund
Language: English
Subfield: Cognitive Neuroscience
Field: Neuroscience
Domain: Life Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W1556924586