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The
Decade of the Brain (1990-2000) brought enormous
advances in our understanding of brain function.
Prominent among these are major achievements
in characterizing the brain mechanisms of learning
and memory. Progress in that era has poised
us to provide a full description of how memory
is accomplished by the brain. A complete understanding
of memory will serve three general goals: First,
our individuality as human beings is constituted
as a lifetime of accumulated knowledge and personal
experience. Therefore the exploration of memory
is a search for self understanding. Second,
deterioration of memory compromises the quality
of life in a very large percentage of aging
individuals. Understanding brain processes that
underlie memory will direct the search for therapies
that can improve and extend our memory capacities
in our later years. Third, learning is a product
of the brain, yet our educational systems do
not take advantage of what we have learned about
the brain in the development of school curricula.
A major long term objective is to assist in
the evolution of teaching strategies that are
based in an understanding of brain function
in learning and memory.
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| The
Boston University Center for Memory and Brain
(CMB) was established as a center of excellence
in research, training, and teaching in the cognitive
neuroscience of memory. The CMB is composed of
faculty within the Departments of Psychology,
Biology, Mathematics, and Biomedical Engineering.
The small core group of neuroscientists that compose
the CMB complement each other in technical abilities
and share the specific interest of characterizing
brain mechanisms of memory. The CMB is unique
in close working relations among its faculty in
a continuity of expertise across the levels of
analysis of memory. We pursue complementary and
collaborative studies aimed at describing the
"circuit diagram" for memory in the
human brain, and we teach at all levels and train
neuroscientists in this field. |
| Research
mission |
| The research
mission of the CMB is to describe the brain systems
and circuits that mediate memory. Over the last
twenty years, considerable data on both the cognitive
and biological aspects of memory have been generated.
In addition, major new technologies have emerged
to reach a new level of discoveries about the
functional circuitry of the brain. Our collaborative
research program combines multiple approaches
towards a full understanding of how the brain
mediates memory. An associated goal is to understand
how memory breaks down in aging and after brain
damage or disease. |
| A central
feature of the CMB is our focus on three state-of-the-art
approaches, each shared by subsets of the core
faculty and is the focus of our collaborative
research. Studies of functional neuroanatomy use
functional brain imaging and neuropsychological
analyses to identify the cognitive processes that
underlie memory and the brain systems and structures
that mediate those processes. Studies of network
representation and dynamics use massive recording
arrays to characterize the neural activity patterns
in brain structures and determine how information
is encoded by ensembles of neurons. Studies of
neuronal types and plasticity use in vitro slices
to characterize functional circuits within brain
areas. Furthermore, within each of these approaches,
we use computational models to understand and
guide the experimental studies. This combination
of approaches will provide an outline of the systems
and circuitry that mediate memory. |
| Training
mission |
| The CMB trains
graduate students and post-doctoral fellows in
the neuroscience of memory. Graduate students
come from the Brain, Behavior, and Cognition program
within the Psychology Department, Neurobiology
within the Biology Department, Biomedical Engineering,
and the Program in Neuroscience. Indeed, the CMB
is attracting some of the very best PhD candidates
into these graduate programs, and to elect a concentration
on memory. Students who concentrate in the neuroscience
of memory are encouraged to have co-advisors within
the CMB, enhancing their training experience.
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| Educational
mission |
| We sponsor several special
activities that teach and promote the neuroscience
of memory. We support both brief and extended
visits by internationally recognized Visiting
Scientists who hold seminars, visit the core faculty
labs, and speak in our seminar series. The CMB
holds a weekly "Memory Lunch", constituted
as a seminar focusing on lectures and discussion
by faculty and students at all levels and frequent
guest lectures by local faculty and visiting scientists.
The CMB faculty teaches courses on memory and
brain research as a part of their departmental
programs, including advanced undergraduate and
graduate courses such as “Memory Systems
of the Brain”, “Neural Networks”,
and “Human Brain Mapping”. In addition,
we have made contact with the educational community
to learn from them about areas in need of help
and offer insights from our knowledge about how
the brain mediates memory. |
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