How can we learn which events are important?
One critical factor underlies the detection of event relationship is temporal proximity. We often associate two events that occur closely in time but do not associate two events separated by a long interval. We seek to uncover how the brain sets the temporal boundary of event associations by probing a method to enhance rats’ ability to link events across time. We also examine how the manipulation changes the brain activity associated with event detection to identify a neural correlate for cognitive enhancement.
Jarovi J, Volle J, Yu XT, Guan L, Takehara-Nishiuchi K (2018) Increased prefrontal activity sharpens the selectivity of prefrontal theta oscillations for the mnemonic value of events and facilitates their encoding. eNeuro, 0407-18.
Volle J, Yu XT, Sun H, Tanninen SE, Takehara-Nishiuchi K (2016) Enhancing prefrontal neuron excitability enables associative learning of temporally disparate events. Cell Reports, 15, 1-11.