Clearing the Contents of Working Memory: Mechanisms and Representations

清除工作记忆的内容：机制和表征

基本信息

批准号：
9301668
负责人：
Marie T Banich
金额：
$ 15.43万
依托单位：
UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO
依托单位国家：
美国
项目类别：
财政年份：
2016
资助国家：
美国
起止时间：
2016-06-20 至 2019-03-31
项目状态：
已结题

来源：
https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/9301668
关键词：
Address Apple Attention Behavioral Brain Brain imaging Brain region Buffers Categories Characteristics Data Ensure Excision Face Feeling Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging Goals Grapes Imaging Techniques Individual Individual Differences Information Retrieval Investigation Learning Melons Memory Mental Depression Mental disorders Methods Mind Nature Negative Valence Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder Outcome Outcomes Research Participant Patient Self-Report Pattern Pear Persons Play Prefrontal Cortex Process Psyche structure Recording of previous events Reporting Research Research Personnel Role Sampling Short-Term Memory Stream System Techniques Testing Therapeutic Intervention Thinking Time Update Work cognitive control computer science design indexing innovation internal control long term memory memory process neuroimaging neuromechanism novel operation public health relevance relating to nervous system tool

项目摘要

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The overall objective of the current project is to understand the neural mechanisms that allow us to remove information from our current thoughts. For the last half century, it has been known that we have a limited capacity to concurrently keep information in mind at one time, typically considered to be about 7 items. This capacity is often referred to as working memory. Surprisingly, what is not known, however, is how we remove information from working memory, so as to either allow other items in or to clear it entirely. Understanding how information is removed from working memory, and which brain systems allow one to do so, is important not only from the perspective of obtaining a better understanding of how the brain influences the way we think, but also because such an understanding has important implications for psychological disorders. Many psychological disorders are characterized by an inability to remove certain types of information from working memory. For example, individuals with obsessive-compulsive disorder have difficulty not thinking about what harm might befall them or others, and individuals with depression have difficulty not ruminating on negative ideas and feelings. One of the reasons that it has been so hard to understand how information is removed from working memory is the large challenge involved in determining what a person might be thinking of at a particular point in time, and/or knowing whether indeed thoughts have been cleared from working memory. The goal of this project is to leverage brain-imaging techniques to overcome this problem. Recent techniques drawn from computer science allow one to characterize the pattern of brain activity associated with particular items (e.g., apples, pears, grapes, melons) or particular categories of items (frui, tools, faces, buildings). The project will utilize such methods to verify, via a pattern of brain activity, on which occasions individuals have either cleared their mind of certain items, or replaced them with other thoughts (e.g., switched from thinking about an apple to thinking about a pear, switched from thinking about an apple to thinking about a hammer). Then, the study will test the hypothesis that a certain set of brain regions in the prefrontal cortex plays a central roe in successfully changing the nature of the information held in working memory. In addition, the proposed research will examine how these neural mechanisms vary depending on differences across individuals. In particular, the project is designed to gather information both on how much difficulty an individual reports in controlling his or her thoughts, and also on the topics and characteristics of an individual's everyday thoughts (e.g., they are usually about things that happened in the past, negative, vague in scope, etc.). It is predicted that individuals who have difficulty controlling their thoughts and who have vague and over general thoughts will have more difficulty removing information from working memory, and they will show less activity in brain regions that control such thoughts. If this hypothesis is confirmed, it could provide new avenues for therapeutic intervention for psychological disorders characterized by repetitive thought.

描述（由适用提供）：当前项目的总体目的是了解使我们从当前思想中删除信息的神经机制。在过去的一个半个世纪中，众所周知，我们的能力有限，可以同时牢记信息，通常被认为是大约7个项目。这种能力通常称为工作记忆。令人惊讶的是，尚不清楚的是我们如何从工作内存中删除信息，以便允许其他项目中的其他项目完全清除。了解如何从工作记忆中删除信息，以及哪些大脑系统允许这样做，这不仅是从更好地理解大脑如何影响我们的思维方式的角度的重要性，而且因为这种理解对心理疾病具有重要意义。许多心理疾病的特征是无法从工作记忆中删除某些类型的信息。例如，强迫症障碍的人很难不考虑可能遭受损害或其他人的伤害，而患有抑郁症的人则难以反省负面思想和感受。很难理解如何从工作记忆中删除信息的原因之一是确定一个人在特定时间点可能想到的内容的巨大挑战和/或知道是否确实从工作记忆中清除了思想。该项目的目的是利用大脑成像技术来克服这个问题。来自计算机科学的最新技术使人们可以表征与特定项目（例如苹果，梨，图形，瓜）或特定类别（FRUI，工具，脸部，建筑物）相关的大脑活动模式。该项目将利用此类方法通过大脑活动的模式来验证个人要么清除某些物品的想法，要么用其他想法代替它们（例如，从考虑苹果的思考转换为思考梨，从思考苹果转换为考虑苹果的想法转换为考虑锤子的思考）。然后，该研究将检验以下假设：前额叶皮层中的一组大脑区域在成功改变工作记忆中持有的信息的性质方面起着中心ROE的作用。此外，拟议的研究还将研究这些神经机制如何根据个人之间的差异而变化。特别是，该项目旨在收集有关个人报告在控制自己的思想方面的困难以及个人每天思想的主题和特征的困难（例如，它们通常是关于过去发生的事情，负面投票，范围等的事情等）。据预测，很难控制自己的思想，投票并且超越一般思想的个人将从工作记忆中获得更困难的删除信息，并且在控制这种思想的大脑区域中，他们的活动将更少。如果证实了这一假设，则可以为以重复性思想为特征的心理疾病提供新的途径。