Publications related to Social memories in rodents: methods, mechanisms and modulation by stress

Ukrainian Literary Imaginaries of Past after 1991: From Substitution to Restoration?

This chapter offers a new view of post-Soviet Ukrainain literary memory as expressed in varous texts, redefining the role of clashing narratives of the past under the divisive political and social conditions of upheavals, crises, and military conflicts. Th ...

Routledge2024

Computational models of intrinsic motivation for curiosity and creativity

Wulfram Gerstner, Alireza Modirshanechi, Sophia Becker

We link Ivancovsky et al.'s novelty-seeking model (NSM) to computational models of intrinsically motivated behavior and learning. We argue that dissociating different forms of curiosity, creativity, and memory based on the involvement of distinct intrinsic ...

2024

Seeking the new, learning from the unexpected: Computational models of surprise and novelty in the brain

Alireza Modirshanechi

Human babies have a natural desire to interact with new toys and objects, through which they learn how the world around them works, e.g., that glass shatters when dropped, but a rubber ball does not. When their predictions are proven incorrect, such as whe ...

EPFL2024

Neurobiological and metabolic basis of motivation and effort-based decision-making - A human 1H-MRS, fMRI and machine learning study

Arthur Barakat

Motivation is a multifaceted phenomenon that we explore within the framework of decision-making. Through this cognitive process, actions are directed towards specific goals by performing a trade-off between the cost and benefit of an action. The dorsomedia ...

EPFL2024

Neurocognition and NMDAR co-agonists pathways in individuals with treatment resistant first-episode psychosis: a 3-year follow-up longitudinal study

Lijing Xin, Kim Do

This study aims to determine whether 1) individuals with treatment-resistant schizophrenia display early cognitive impairment compared to treatment-responders and healthy controls and 2) N-methyl-D-aspartate-receptor hypofunction is an underlying mechanism ...

Springernature2024

White adipose tissue distribution and amount are associated with increased white matter connectivity

Jean-Philippe Thiran, Elda Fischi Gomez, Gabriel Girard, Philipp Johannes Koch, Liana Okudzhava

Obesity represents a significant public health concern and is linked to various comorbidities and cognitive impairments. Previous research indicates that elevated body mass index (BMI) is associated with structural changes in white matter (WM). However, a ...

Wiley2024

Non-invasive stimulation of the human striatum disrupts reinforcement learning of motor skills

Elena Beanato, Esra Neufeld, Friedhelm Christoph Hummel, Takuya Morishita, Maximilian Jonas Wessel, Traian Popa, Pierre Theopistos Vassiliadis, Julie Duqué, Fabienne Windel

Reinforcement feedback can improve motor learning, but the underlying brain mechanisms remain underexplored. In particular, the causal contribution of specific patterns of oscillatory activity within the human striatum is unknown. To address this question, ...

Nature Portfolio2024

Evaluating the Impact of Learner Control and Interactivity in Conversational Tutoring Systems for Persuasive Writing

Tanja Christina Käser Jacober, Thiemo Wambsganss

Conversational tutoring systems (CTSs) offer a promising avenue for individualized learning support, especially in domains like persuasive writing. Although these systems have the potential to enhance the learning process, the specific role of learner cont ...

2024

Involvement of prelimbic cortex neurons and related circuits in the acquisition of a cooperative learning by pairs of rats

Maria del Carmen Sandi Perez, Elias Georges Gebara, Ana del Rocio Conde Moro

Social behaviors such as cooperation are crucial for mammals. A deeper knowledge of the neuronal mechanisms underlying cooperation can be beneficial for people suffering from pathologies with impaired social behavior. Our aim was to study the brain activit ...

Springer2024

Parental status and markers of brain and cellular age: A 3D convolutional network and classification study

Donal Patrick Hill

Recent research shows prominent effects of pregnancy and the parenthood transition on structural brain characteristics in humans. Here, we present a comprehensive study of how parental status and number of children born/fathered links to markers of brain a ...

Pergamon-Elsevier Science Ltd2024

A theory of memory consolidation and synaptic pruning in cortical circuits

Georgios Iatropoulos

Over the course of a lifetime, the human brain acquires an astonishing amount of semantic knowledge and autobiographical memories, often with an imprinting strong enough to allow detailed information to be recalled many years after the initial learning exp ...

EPFL2023

Noninvasive deep brain stimulation to modulate human behavior by means of transcranial temporal interference electrical stimulation

Elena Beanato

All functions we use in our everyday life depend on a complex interplay between both cortical and subcortical brain areas, communicating in between each others. When a region is affected by either an accident, aging or neurodegenerative diseases, the whole ...

EPFL2023

Computational models of episodic-like memory in food-caching birds

Wulfram Gerstner, Johanni Michael Brea

How the 'what', 'where', and 'when' of past experiences are stored in episodic memories and retrieved for suitable decisions remains unclear. In an effort to address these questions, the authors present computational models of neural networks that behave l ...

Nature Portfolio2023

Face your fears: attenuating remote fear memories by reconsolidation-updating

Johannes Gräff, Bianca Ambrogina Silva

Traumatic events generate some of the most enduring memories, yet little is known about how long-lasting fear memories can be attenuated. In this review, we collect the surprisingly sparse evidence on remote fear memory attenuation from both animal and hum ...

ELSEVIER SCIENCE LONDON2023

A dynamic attractor network model of memory formation, reinforcement and forgetting

Wulfram Gerstner, Chiara Gastaldi, Marta Boscaglia

Empirical evidence shows that memories that are frequently revisited are easy to recall, and that familiar items involve larger hippocampal representations than less familiar ones. In line with these observations, here we develop a modelling approach to pr ...

Public Library Science2023

Engram cell connectivity as a mechanism for information encoding and memory function

Maurizio Ferdinando Pezzoli

Information derived from experiences is incorporated into the brain as changes to ensembles of cells, termed engram cells, which allow memory storage and recall. The mechanism by which those changes hold specific information is unclear. Here, we test the h ...

Cell Press2023

Bodily self-consciousness as a framework to link sensory information and self-related components of episodic memory: behavioral, neuroimaging, and clinical evidence

Nathalie Heidi Meyer

The recollection of sensory information and subjective experience related to a personal past event depends on our episodic memory (EM). At the neural level, EM retrieval is linked with the reinstatement of hippocampal activity thought to recollect the sens ...

EPFL2023

Tissue clearing applications in memory engram research

Johannes Gräff, Kwok Yui Reymond Yip

A memory engram is thought to be the physical substrate of the memory trace within the brain, which is generally depicted as a neuronal ensemble activated by learning to fire together during encoding and retrieval. It has been postulated that engram cell e ...

FRONTIERS MEDIA SA2023

Prefrontal engrams of long-term fear memory perpetuate pain perception

Johannes Gräff, Yechao Han

A painful episode can lead to a life-long increase in an individual's experience of pain. Fearful anticipation of imminent pain could play a role in this phenomenon, but the neurobiological underpinnings are unclear because fear can both suppress and enhan ...

NATURE PORTFOLIO2023

Plasticity of sensory representations in the posterior insular cortex during fear learning

Denys Osypenko

Aversively-motivated associative learning allows animals to avoid harm and thus ensures survival. Aversive learning can be studied by the fear learning paradigm, in which an innocuous sensory stimulus like a tone (conditioned stimulus, CS), acquires a nega ...

EPFL2023