Innovating Works

HighMemory

Financiado
Beyond classical conditioning Hippocampal circuits in higher order memory proc...
Animals and humans adapt to changes in the environment through the encoding and storage of previous experiences. Although associative learning involving a reinforcer has been the major focus in the field of cognition, other forms... Animals and humans adapt to changes in the environment through the encoding and storage of previous experiences. Although associative learning involving a reinforcer has been the major focus in the field of cognition, other forms of learning are gaining popularity as they are likely more relevant and frequent in human daily choices. Indeed, associations between non-reinforcing stimuli represent the most evolutionarily advanced way to increase the chances of predicting future events and adapting individuals’ behavior. Animals are also able to form these higher-order conditioning processes, but more research is needed to understand how the brain encode and store these complex cognitive processes. In this project, I propose to study the role of hippocampo-cortical circuits in higher-order conditioning processes. These processes explain why subjects are often repulsed or attracted by stimuli, which do not have intrinsic repellent or appealing value and they were never explicitly paired with negative or positive outcomes. A proposed explanation of these ungrounded aversion or attraction is that these stimuli were incidentally associated with other cues directly reinforced, through a process called mediated learning (ML). However, with increased incidental associations, the subjects acquire more information, allowing them to separate the real saliences of the different stimuli. Therefore, ML evolves into reality testing(RT), a behavioral process that has been even less studied. These processes involve multiple brain regions and are characterized by accessible phases, making them perfect models to study the circuit-level regulation of complex behavior. By using genetic, pharmacological, imaging and mouse behavioral approaches (sensory preconditioning), HighMemory proposes to characterize at macro- (brain regions), meso- (cell-types) and micro-scale (activity changes), the causal involvement of hippocampo-cortical projections in higher-order conditioning processes. ver más
30/04/2026
1M€
Duración del proyecto: 65 meses Fecha Inicio: 2020-11-18
Fecha Fin: 2026-04-30

Línea de financiación: concedida

El organismo H2020 notifico la concesión del proyecto el día 2020-11-18
Línea de financiación objetivo El proyecto se financió a través de la siguiente ayuda:
ERC-2020-STG: ERC STARTING GRANTS
Cerrada hace 5 años
Presupuesto El presupuesto total del proyecto asciende a 1M€
Líder del proyecto
Fundació Institut Hospital del Mar D'Investig... No se ha especificado una descripción o un objeto social para esta compañía.
Perfil tecnológico TRL 4-5 16M