Publications related to Memory consolidation

Computational models of episodic-like memory in food-caching birds

How the 'what', 'where', and 'when' of past experiences are stored in episodic memories and retrieved for suitable decisions remains unclear. In an effort to address these questions, the authors present computational models of neural networks that behave l ...

Nature Portfolio2023

A theory of memory consolidation and synaptic pruning in cortical circuits

Georgios Iatropoulos

Over the course of a lifetime, the human brain acquires an astonishing amount of semantic knowledge and autobiographical memories, often with an imprinting strong enough to allow detailed information to be recalled many years after the initial learning exp ...

EPFL2023

Tissue clearing applications in memory engram research

Johannes Gräff, Kwok Yui Reymond Yip

A memory engram is thought to be the physical substrate of the memory trace within the brain, which is generally depicted as a neuronal ensemble activated by learning to fire together during encoding and retrieval. It has been postulated that engram cell e ...

FRONTIERS MEDIA SA2023

Face your fears: attenuating remote fear memories by reconsolidation-updating

Johannes Gräff, Bianca Ambrogina Silva

Traumatic events generate some of the most enduring memories, yet little is known about how long-lasting fear memories can be attenuated. In this review, we collect the surprisingly sparse evidence on remote fear memory attenuation from both animal and hum ...

ELSEVIER SCIENCE LONDON2023

A dynamic attractor network model of memory formation, reinforcement and forgetting

Wulfram Gerstner, Chiara Gastaldi, Marta Boscaglia

Empirical evidence shows that memories that are frequently revisited are easy to recall, and that familiar items involve larger hippocampal representations than less familiar ones. In line with these observations, here we develop a modelling approach to pr ...

Public Library Science2023

Prefrontal engrams of long-term fear memory perpetuate pain perception

Johannes Gräff, Yechao Han

A painful episode can lead to a life-long increase in an individual's experience of pain. Fearful anticipation of imminent pain could play a role in this phenomenon, but the neurobiological underpinnings are unclear because fear can both suppress and enhan ...

NATURE PORTFOLIO2023

When the industry built the city: business archives, memory and community in a contemporary company town

Anna Karla De Almeida Milani

This short essay illustrates the role of the business archive in the transmission and maintenance of contemporary industrial culture, with a focus on the company town of Dalmine. In the context of Dalmine, the business archive managed by the Fondazione Dal ...

EPFL Press English Imprint2023

Bodily self-consciousness as a framework to link sensory information and self-related components of episodic memory: behavioral, neuroimaging, and clinical evidence

Nathalie Heidi Meyer

The recollection of sensory information and subjective experience related to a personal past event depends on our episodic memory (EM). At the neural level, EM retrieval is linked with the reinstatement of hippocampal activity thought to recollect the sens ...

EPFL2023

Plasticity of sensory representations in the posterior insular cortex during fear learning

Denys Osypenko

Aversively-motivated associative learning allows animals to avoid harm and thus ensures survival. Aversive learning can be studied by the fear learning paradigm, in which an innocuous sensory stimulus like a tone (conditioned stimulus, CS), acquires a nega ...

EPFL2023

A striatal circuit balances learned fear in the presence and absence of sensory cues

Ralf Schneggenburger, Olexiy Kochubey, Michael Kintscher

During fear learning, defensive behaviors like freezing need to be finely balanced in the presence or absence of threat-predicting cues (conditioned stimulus, CS). Nevertheless, the circuits underlying such balancing are largely unknown. Here, we investiga ...

eLIFE SCIENCES PUBL LTD2023

Noninvasive deep brain stimulation to modulate human behavior by means of transcranial temporal interference electrical stimulation

Elena Beanato

All functions we use in our everyday life depend on a complex interplay between both cortical and subcortical brain areas, communicating in between each others. When a region is affected by either an accident, aging or neurodegenerative diseases, the whole ...

EPFL2023

2D Nanosystems: Applications of 2D Semiconductors for In-Memory Computing

Guilherme Migliato Marega

Machine learning and data processing algorithms have been thriving in finding ways of processing and classifying information by exploiting the hidden trends of large datasets. Although these emerging computational methods have become successful in today's ...

EPFL2023

Blunted Glucocorticoid Responsiveness to Stress Causes Behavioral and Biological Alterations That Lead to Posttraumatic Stress Disorder Vulnerability

Maria del Carmen Sandi Perez, Jocelin Grosse, Olivia Zanoletti, Simone Astori, Marie-Isabelle Guillot de Suduiraut, Sophie Elizabeth Walker, Silvia Monari

Background: Understanding why only a subset of trauma-exposed individuals develop posttraumatic stress disorder is critical for advancing clinical strategies. A few behavioral (deficits in fear extinction) and biological (blunted glucocorticoid levels, sma ...

2023

Inquiring the librarian about the location of memory

Gabriel Berdugo Vega

Where memories are stored in the brain is an age-old question in psychology and neuroscience alike. In particular, whether hippocampus-encoded memories are transferred to the cortex or remain hippocampus-dependent over time has not been definitely answered ...

ROUTLEDGE JOURNALS, TAYLOR & FRANCIS LTD2022

Where does the engram come from? Study of prefrontal cortex inputs during memory consolidation

Lucie Pauline Dixsaut

The formation and storage of memories has been under deep investigation for several decades. Nevertheless, the precise contribution of each brain region involved in this process and the interplay between them across memory consolidation is still largely de ...

EPFL2022

Brain-wide screen of prelimbic cortex inputs reveals a functional shift during early fear memory consolidation

Johannes Gräff, Lucie Pauline Dixsaut

Memory formation and storage rely on multiple interconnected brain areas, the contribution of which varies during memory consolidation. The medial prefrontal cortex, in particular the prelimbic cortex (PL), was traditionally found to be involved in remote ...

2022

Genetic selection for low glucocorticoid responsiveness recapitulates PTSD-related phenotypes: a behavioral, neuroimaging and sleep-physiology study

Silvia Monari

Humans show inter-individual differences in vulnerability to develop post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) following exposure to trauma. Several critical biobehavioral features have been consistently described in PTSD patients, including blunted cortisol l ...

EPFL2022

The HDAC inhibitor CI-994 acts as a molecular memory aid by facilitating synaptic and intracellular communication after learning

Johannes Gräff, Giulia Santoni, Allison Marie Burns, Jose Vicente Sanchez Mut

Long-term memory formation relies on synaptic plasticity, neuronal activity-dependent gene transcription, and epigenetic modifications. Multiple studies have shown that HDAC inhibitor (HDACi) treatments can enhance individual aspects of these processes and ...

2022

Epigenetic memory aids: Synaptic and molecular effects of HDAC inhibition that support memory formation

Allison Marie Burns

Learning and memory rely on synaptic communication in which intracellular signals are transported to the nucleus to stimulate transcriptional activation. Memory induced transcriptional increases are accompanied by alterations to the epigenetic landscape an ...

EPFL2022

Epigenetic plasticity as a signature for memory allocation

Giulia Santoni

Long-lasting memories are stored in a small set of neurons scattered throughout the brain, so-called engram cells. To define a stable engram each region of the brain involved in memory storage recruits between 5 and 20 percent of excitatory neurons. In par ...

EPFL2022