The Neurobiological Basis of Memory Specificity: The Influence of Context and Re-Encoding

Dr. Brock Kirwan, Psychology Department

Application Abstract

At a general level, we know that the information that is successfully encoded in and retrieved from long-term memory is influenced by the context during encoding and retrieval. However, we do not yet know how context affects mnemonic discrimination of similar or overlapping items or events. Further, we do not yet know what the effect is of retrieving the wrong information (or false recognition) on the original memory representation. Here, I propose to lead a group of students in an investigation using functional MRI (fMRI) on the effects of context on a neural process called pattern separation that is thought to underlie our ability to form specific memories for items and events. We will also investigate the neural and behavioral effects of incorrectly recognizing an event that did not in fact occur. Students have led the design of these projects and will continue to take the lead in data collection and analysis. They will also be responsible for writing the results for publication and presentation at international conferences.

Evaluation of how well the academic objectives of the proposal were met & Description of results

Specific Aim 1: Investigate how stimulus-context congruency influences memory specificity for items and contexts.

The research for specific aim 1 is still ongoing. As this experiment required the development and testing of new stimuli and a new behavioral paradigm, the timeline was pushed back relative to what we anticipated. We have so far collected MRI data for 12 subjects. Preliminary analyses indicate that object-background congruency does in fact influence distinct memory networks in the brain, consistent with our hypothesis. As proposed in the MEG, I traveled with a group of students to the Society for Neuroscience conference this fall to present these results (see Figure 1 and Appendix 1). One of my PhD students, Ariana Hedges-Muncy, intends to include this study in her dissertation prospectus, to be proposed early 2018.

Specific Aim 2: Investigate how false recognition of similar lure items influences subsequent memory for the original target item.

Specific Aim 2 is further developed than specific aim 1. We have collected and analyzed MRI data from the full cohort of 35 participants. The results indicate that initial false alarms are due to inattention at the time of encoding (consistent with previous literature). Our question of interest was about what happens to those false alarms subsequently. We found a network of regions involved in cognitive control where neural activation predicted a subsequent recovery from a false alarm, indicating a distinct mnemonic process associated with recovering from false memories. These results were presented at the 2017 Society for Neuroscience conference by Nathan Muncy (see Figures 2 and Appendix 2). Nathan is working to write up these results for publication (see draft of his manuscript attached to this report).

Evaluation of the mentoring environment

The purpose of this proposal was to prepare BYU students for graduate work and for careers in other areas related to cognitive neuroscience. The analytical skills students gain in a mentored research environment may have wide application in any number of fields. The unparalleled access to cutting-edge research techniques that students have at BYU will give students a competitive advantage in applying for graduate school, medical/dental school, and other employment opportunities. MEG-supported students spent substantial time working on all phases of the project, including a) experiment design and programming; b) execution of the experiments including fMRI data collection; c) data extraction and analysis using specialty software packages; d) preparation of scientific reports for presentation at international meetings and publication in respected neuroscience and psychology journals. I feel that I was able to address the principles of mentorship as discussed in the application for this MEG.

Students who participated and academic deliverables they have produced

Dan Bjornn – Psychology
(PhD) Vance. A., Jenkins, JL., Anderson, B.B., Bjornn, D.K., & Kirwan, C.B. (2017). Tuning Out Security Warnings: A Longitudinal Examination of Habituation through fMRI, Eye Tracking, and Field Experiments. Management Information Systems Quarterly.

Bjornn, D.K., Straw, C., Brighton, E.S., and Kirwan, C.B. Target-lure similarity predicts eye movements during encoding and retrieval in a mnemonic discrimination task. Program No. 431.17. Neuroscience 2017 Abstracts. Washington, DC: Society for Neuroscience, 2017. Online.

Kirwan, C.B., Vance, A., Jenkins, J., Anderson, B.B., Bjornn, D.K. (2017, June) Why and How to Design Behavioral Experiments to Complement Decision Neuroscience Experiments. Talk presented at the 7th Annual Interdisciplinary Symposium on Decision Neuroscience, Stanford University, Palo Alto, CA.

Anderson, B., Jenkins, J., Vance, A., Kirwan, C.B., & Bjornn, D.* (2016, December) It All Looks the Same to Me: Security Warning and System Notification Generalization Captured through Eye Tracking, Workshop on Information Security and Privacy (WISP), Dublin, Ireland.

Bjornn, D.K.*, Howell, A.L.**, Anderson, B.B., Vance, A., & Kirwan, C.B. Evidence for consolidation of pattern-separated memories in ventromedial prefrontal cortex but not hippocampus. Program No. 637.13. Neuroscience 2016 Abstracts. San Diego, CA: Society for Neuroscience, 2016. Online.

Anderson, B., Vance, A., Jenkins, J., Kirwan, C.B., & Bjornn, D.* (2016, October) I Can’t Spot the Difference: An Eye Tracking Study Examining Generalization between Security Warnings and System Notifications, The Dewald Roode Workshop on Information Systems Security Research, IFIP WG8.11/WG11.13, Albuquerque, NM.

Bjornn, D.K.*, Kirwan, C.B., Anderson, B.B., Jenkins, J.L., & Vance, A. (2016, June) A longitudinal investigation of habituation to security warnings: A parallel fMRI and eye tracking study. Presented at the 6th Annual Interdisciplinary Symposium on Decision Neuroscience, Philadelphia, PA.

Anderson, B., Vance, A., Jenkins, J., Kirwan, C.B., & Bjornn, D.* (2016, June) It All Blurs Together: How the Effects of Habituation Generalize Across System Notifications and Security Warnings, Gmunden Retreat on NeuroIS, Gmunden, Austria.

Vance, A., Anderson, B., Jenkins, J., Kirwan, C.B., & Bjornn, D.* (2016, June) It All Blurs Together: How the Effects of Habituation Generalize Across System Notifications and Security Warnings, Lightning Talk, Symposium on Usable Privacy and Security, Denver, CO.

Vance, A., Anderson, B., Jenkins, J., Kirwan, C.B., & Bjornn, D.* (2016, May) It All Blurs Together: How the Effects of Habituation Generalize Across System Notifications and Security Warnings, Workshop on Security and Human Behavior, Boston, MA.

Nathan Muncy – Psychology (PhD)
Doxey, C.R., Hodges, C.B., Bodily, T., Muncy, N.M., & Kirwan, C.B. (2017) The Effects of Sleep on the Neural Correlates of Pattern Separation. Hippocampus. doi: 10.1002/hipo.22814

Carbine, K.A., Duraccio, K.M., Kirwan, C.B., Muncy, N.M., LeCheminant, J.D., & Larson, M.J. (2017). A direct comparison between ERP and fMRI measurements of food-related inhibitory control: Implications for BMI status and dietary intake. NeuroImage. doi: 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2017.11.008

Muncy, N.M., Hedges-Muncy, A., & Kirwan, C.B. (2017). Discrete pre-processing step effects in registration-based pipelines: A preliminary volumetric study on T1- weighted images. PLoS ONE. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.016071

Hobbs, L.K., Stevens, N.M., Richter, K., Anderson, M.L., Johnson, P., Muncy, N.M., Doxey, C.R., Wang, H., Hartley, R., Davis, K., Ottesen, Kirwan, C.B., and Wisco, J. Putative pheromone activated brain activity between male and female young adults. Program No. 55.01. Neuroscience 2017 Abstracts. Washington, DC: Society for Neuroscience, 2017. Online.

Hedges-Muncy, A, Muncy, N.M., and Kirwan, C.B. MRI data pre-processing steps differentially affect volumetric measures. Program No. 431.20. Neuroscience 2017 Abstracts. Washington, DC: Society for Neuroscience, 2017. Online.

Muncy, N.M., and Kirwan, C.B. The fate of memory representations in mnemonic generalization: An FMRI study. Program No. 431.21. Neuroscience 2017 Abstracts. Washington, DC: Society for Neuroscience, 2017. Online.

Hodges, C.B., Muncy, N.M., and Kirwan, C.B. Physical activity is associated with differential BOLD responses In the hippocampus during pattern separation: an fMRI study. Program No. 431.22. Neuroscience 2017 Abstracts. Washington, DC: Society for Neuroscience, 2017. Online

Muncy, N.M. & Kirwan, C.B. The effect of false recognition on memory encoding and discrimination. Program No. 637.14. Neuroscience 2016 Abstracts. San Diego, CA: Society for Neuroscience, 2016. Online.

Ariana Hedges-Muncy – Psychology (PhD)
Muncy, N.M., Hedges-Muncy, A., & Kirwan, C.B. (2017). Discrete pre-processing step effects in registration-based pipelines: A preliminary volumetric study on T1- weighted images. PLoS ONE. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.016071

Winn, T., Hedges-Muncy, A., and Kirwan, C.B. Mnemonic discrimination in contextdependent memory specificity utilizing eye tracking confidence measures. Program No. 431.18. Neuroscience 2017 Abstracts. Washington, DC: Society for Neuroscience, 2017. Online.

Hedges-Muncy, A., & Kirwan, C.B. The influence of context elements on pattern separation. Program No. 637.18. Neuroscience 2016 Abstracts. San Diego, CA: Society for Neuroscience, 2016. Online.

Ty Bodily – Neuroscience (MS)
Doxey, C.R., Hodges, C.B., Bodily, T., Muncy, N.M., & Kirwan, C.B. (2017) The Effects of Sleep on the Neural Correlates of Pattern Separation. Hippocampus. doi: 10.1002/hipo.22814

Kirwan, C.B., & Bodily, T. (2017). Network Connectivity. In J. Kreutzer, J. DeLuca & B. Caplan (Eds.), Encyclopedia of Clinical Neuropsychology (pp. 1-2). Cham: Springer International Publishing. doi: 10.1007/978-3-319-56782-2_9070-1

Kirwan, C.B., & Bodily, T. (2017). Network Edges. In J. Kreutzer, J. DeLuca & B. Caplan (Eds.), Encyclopedia of Clinical Neuropsychology (pp. 1-2). Cham: Springer International Publishing. doi: 10.1007/978-3-319-56782-2_9071-1

Kirwan, C.B., & Bodily, T. (2017). Network Hubs. In J. Kreutzer, J. DeLuca & B. Caplan (Eds.), Encyclopedia of Clinical Neuropsychology (pp. 1-2). Cham: Springer International Publishing. doi: 10.1007/978-3-319-56782-2_9073-1

Kirwan, C.B., & Bodily, T. (2017). Network Nodes. In J. Kreutzer, J. DeLuca & B. Caplan (Eds.), Encyclopedia of Clinical Neuropsychology (pp. 1-2). Cham: Springer International Publishing. doi: 10.1007/978-3-319-56782-2_9072-1

Bodily, T.A., Peacock, J., Busath, D., and Kirwan, C.B. An fMRI analysis of peripheral neuropathy pain before and after treatment with transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulation. Program No. 398.15. Neuroscience 2017 Abstracts. Washington, DC: Society for Neuroscience, 2017. Online.

Cooper Hodges – Psychology (PhD)
Doxey, C.R., Hodges, C.B., Bodily, T., Muncy, N.M., & Kirwan, C.B. (2017) The Effects of Sleep on the Neural Correlates of Pattern Separation. Hippocampus. doi: 10.1002/hipo.22814

Athena Howell – Neuroscience
Howell, A.L., Gold, C.E., and Kirwan, C.B. Exploring the resting state neural activity of monolinguals, late and early bilinguals. Program No. 431.19. Neuroscience 2017 Abstracts. Washington, DC: Society for Neuroscience, 2017. Online.

Todd Winn – Neuroscience
Winn, T., Hedges-Muncy, A., and Kirwan, C.B. Mnemonic discrimination in contextdependent memory specificity utilizing eye tracking confidence measures. Program No. 431.18. Neuroscience 2017 Abstracts. Washington, DC: Society for Neuroscience, 2017. Online.

Other students supported by the MEG:

Jordan Clark – Neuroscience
Annelise Toolson – Neuroscience
Torin Kelley – Neuroscience
Lindsay Westra – Psychology
Elija Möller – Psychology
Caitlyn Towne – Neuroscience
Clara Rodriquez – Neuroscience
Emily Maxwell – Neuroscience
Mia Felin – Psychology

Description of how the budget was spent

The budget was principally intended to support undergraduate students wages and travel to present their research at a major neuroscience conference (values are approximate):

Brigham Young University

Journal of Undergraduate Research