Relating episodic memory and episodic future thinking in hippocampus

University Of Minnesota, Minneapolis MN

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Abstract

An extensive literature suggests a role for the hippocampus in episodic memory, particularly in the re-construction of those memories; a growing literature is now suggesting a role for the hippocampus in planning and imagination, particularly in the construction of future potential episodes, a process termed ``episodic future thinking''. These two processes have obvious similarities (they both entail construction of episodic representations) and obvious differences (memory is trying to reconstruct a real past, imagination is trying to hypothesize a potential future). However, it is not known what the hippocampus contributes to these phenomena, nor how the information processing in the hippocampus differs between them. We have preliminary data that the hippocampus provides information about the past (episodic memory) and the future (episodic future thinking) at different times on a serial foraging task. New mathematical techniques now allow decoding of represented variables from neural ensembles at very fast timescales, enabling the observation of those transient, covert processes. The goal of this proposal is to use these new techniques to track the changes in hippocampal representation at cognitive (10 ms) timescales. Combining newly available multi-structure recording techniques, newly developed tasks, newly improved neural ensemble analysis techniques, and computational modeling, we will examine the relationship between the representations of past events and future possibilities in hippocampus to determine the mechanism by which the hippocampus computes these representations.