{"596227":{"#nid":"596227","#data":{"type":"event","title":"Mechanisms of Contextual Memory and Goal-Directed Behavior in Humans","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cem\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EEditor\u0026#39;s Note: This announcement first appeared in the School of Psychology website. \u003Ca href=\u0022http:\/\/psychology.gatech.edu\/hg\/item\/595671\u0022\u003EFor updates, please refer to the original posting\u003C\/a\u003E.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/em\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EABSTRACT\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003EContextual information plays a critical role in daily life, helping define episodic experience and facilitating the retrieval of goal-relevant memories. Moreover, memory retrieval underlies mental simulation and the planning of future behavior. The hippocampus and neighboring medial temporal lobe (MTL) cortices are believed to play a critical role in the flexible representation and context-guided retrieval of the unique features of past experiences.\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022http:\/\/psychology.gatech.edu\/thackery-i-brown\u0022\u003EThackery Brown\u003C\/a\u003E will present a series of experiments\u0026nbsp;combining\u0026nbsp;immersive virtual navigation paradigms with univariate and multivariate functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) techniques to study the MTL mechanisms governing context-guided memory and planning.\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003EBrown will discuss foundational work, motivated by computational models of memory, that links human hippocampal mechanisms to the learning and flexible retrieval of sequential navigational experiences. He will then present high-resolution fMRI data that link hippocampal mechanisms to prospective retrieval and the simulation of future experience.\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003EUsing multivoxel pattern decoding techniques, the\u0026nbsp;data provide novel evidence that the human MTL supports goal-directed navigation by representing future goal states during navigational planning. Convergent evidence from these studies reveals mechanistic links between network-level interactions of the hippocampus and the translation of memory traces into goal-directed planning and action.\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003ECollectively, these findings provide a core framework for understanding, and programmatic research into, the neural mechanisms that enable humans to distinguish between memories, generalize across experiences, and leverage memory traces to guide planning and behavior.\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EABOUT THE SPEAKER\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003EThackery Brown is an assistant professor in the Georgia Tech School of Psychology. He received his Ph.D. in Psychology from Boston University under the mentorship of Chantal Stern. He\u0026nbsp;completed his postdoctoral training at Stanford University with Anthony Wagner.\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003EBrown is\u0026nbsp;a member of the\u0026nbsp;\u003Ca href=\u0022http:\/\/www.cabiatl.com\/CABI\/\u0022 rel=\u0022noopener\u0022 target=\u0022_blank\u0022\u003ECenter for Advanced Brain Imaging (CABI)\u003C\/a\u003E\u0026nbsp;and\u0026nbsp;\u003Ca href=\u0022http:\/\/neuro.gatech.edu\/gtneuro-synthesis-neuroscience-and-neurotechnology\u0022 rel=\u0022noopener\u0022 target=\u0022_blank\u0022\u003EGeorgia Tech Neuroscience\u003C\/a\u003E. He is a network scholar of The\u003Ca href=\u0022http:\/\/www.lawneuro.org\/\u0022\u003E MacArthur Foundation Research Network on Law and Neuroscience.\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n","summary":null,"format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":"","field_summary":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EContextual information plays a critical role in daily life, helping define episodic experience and facilitating the retrieval of goal-relevant memories. Moreover, memory retrieval underlies mental simulation and the planning of future behavior.\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n","format":"limited_html"}],"field_summary_sentence":[{"value":"A School of Psychology colloquium by Thackery Brown"}],"uid":"30678","created_gmt":"2017-09-20 13:45:44","changed_gmt":"2017-09-20 17:00:35","author":"A. Maureen Rouhi","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","field_event_time":{"event_time_start":"2017-10-18T16:00:00-04:00","event_time_end":"2017-10-18T17:00:00-04:00","event_time_end_last":"2017-10-18T17:00:00-04:00","gmt_time_start":"2017-10-18 20:00:00","gmt_time_end":"2017-10-18 21:00:00","gmt_time_end_last":"2017-10-18 21:00:00","rrule":null,"timezone":"America\/New_York"},"extras":[],"hg_media":{"596228":{"id":"596228","type":"image","title":"Thackery Brown","body":null,"created":"1505915271","gmt_created":"2017-09-20 13:47:51","changed":"1505915271","gmt_changed":"2017-09-20 13:47:51","alt":"","file":{"fid":"227224","name":"thackery_brown.jpg","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/thackery_brown.jpg","image_full_path":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/thackery_brown.jpg","mime":"image\/jpeg","size":28513,"path_740":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/images\/thackery_brown.jpg?itok=ob1uo_NV"}}},"media_ids":["596228"],"related_links":[{"url":"http:\/\/maplab.gatech.edu\/author\/tbrown338\/","title":"MAP Laboratory"}],"groups":[{"id":"1278","name":"College of Sciences"}],"categories":[],"keywords":[{"id":"122821","name":"cognitive psychology"},{"id":"175448","name":"cognitive neuroscience"},{"id":"167710","name":"School of Psychology"},{"id":"4896","name":"College of Sciences"},{"id":"175547","name":"Thackery Brown"}],"core_research_areas":[],"news_room_topics":[],"event_categories":[{"id":"1795","name":"Seminar\/Lecture\/Colloquium"}],"invited_audience":[{"id":"78761","name":"Faculty\/Staff"},{"id":"174045","name":"Graduate students"}],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003ELeslie Dionne White\u003Cbr \/\u003E\r\n404-894-7557\u0026nbsp;\u003Cbr \/\u003E\r\nleslied@gatech.edu\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n","format":"limited_html"}],"email":[],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}}}