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The Power of Research
Dr. Endel Tulving is one of the world’s foremost figures in the science of memory and the brain. Find out what makes this brilliant man tick and how his research is transforming the way people age at Baycrest, and around the globe.
A casual conversation over a beer in the faculty lounge at the University of
Toronto (U of T) in 1992 led to Baycrest’s recruitment of one of the world’s most influential scientists in human memory of the past 50 years. Undecided about where he wanted to continue his research after reaching retirement age at U of T, Dr. Endel Tulving asked fellow psychologist Dr. Donald Stuss for his advice. Dr. Stuss suggested he come to Baycrest’s Rotman Research Institute, the fledgling brain research institute where he was director, and the rest is history.
“Endel provided an immediate stamp of external credibility that gave us a huge leap forward in terms of recruiting exceptional scientists and in bringing in donor money for research chairs,” Dr. Stuss explains. Dr. Tulving is the Anne and Max Tanenbaum Chair in Cognitive Neuroscience at Baycrest and U of T, the first of seven endowed research chairs at Baycrest.
A world-renowned neuroscientist, Dr. Tulving recently added Officer of the Order of Canada to the long list of distinguished awards he has received for his contributions to memory research, and was inducted into the Canadian Medical Hall of Fame. In 2005, he received the prestigious Gairdner International Award, considered a precursor to the Nobel Prize.
The significance of Dr. Tulving’s findings date back to the 1950s when experimental psychologists did not deal with concepts such as memory. “Behaviourists looked at what people did and how they behaved and were very much against looking at the mind or mental processes,” explains Dr. Fergus Craik, a Rotman scientist and former head of the psychology department at U of T. “His influence was very marked at that stage in pushing the field toward thinking of the mental processes by which we lay down and retrieve memories.”
“His next great achievement was distinguishing between two kinds of memory that work in parallel; memories of which we are consciously aware and memories of which we are not aware,” adds Dr.Morris Moscovitch, a Rotman scientist and U of T psychology professor. “At Baycrest, our psychologists have developed programs of memory rehabilitation that build on this notion to help people with memory disorders.”
One of Dr. Tulving’s most contentious theories, which is now widely accepted, proposed a distinction between two kinds of long-term memory – episodic and semantic. Episodic memory, a term that he coined, is the memory of events that we have personally experienced or witnessed, such as visiting the Eiffel Tower in Paris. Semantic memory refers to general facts and knowledge we have about the world, such as knowing Paris is the capital of France.
“Most people have one or two good ideas in their lifetime,” adds Dr. Moscovitch. “But every decade, from his 30s to his 80s, Endel has come up with some major insights.”
“What he does best is to take large ideas and bring them down into ideas that can be measured in small ways, and that is genius,” Dr. Stuss explains. “Not many people can do that.”
Lawrence Tanenbaum, whose mother Anne endowed Dr. Tulving’s research chair in honour of her late husband, says, “We continue to be both pleased and proud of the work Dr. Tulving has done, and continues to do, in unlocking the mysteries of human memory. In a rapidly aging population, the work of Baycrest researchers is more important than ever, and our family is privileged to be able to play a role in facilitating this important research.”
In His Own Words
An interview with renowned memory scientist Dr. Endel Tulving, the Anne and Max Tanenbaum Chair in Cognitive Neuroscience.
Q What was the reaction to your theory that there are different types of long-term memory – episodic and semantic?
A In the early 1970s, everyone was happy with the idea that there is one kind of long-term memory, so the majority of psychologists thought my theory was nonsense. People are not used to new ideas. But in science, the originators of a new idea have to present to the rest of the scientific community and then it is the duty of the community to prove you wrong. So all the skeptics did their duty and tried very hard. Of course, I thought that the distinction I made was so simple and so obvious, why fight it; let’s just move on. Other branches of neuroscience were okay with it. Even now, there are still those who do not think this distinction is real. Thirty-five years later, I have convinced myself that it is really real.
Q What was the turning point for you?
A Probably the decisive turning point was finding real physiological evidence for the distinction when we started using PET scans to measure brain activity. In 1994, I published a paper on a study that found differences between episodic and semantic memory retrieval in the frontal regions of the brain, and at about that time, the same kind of discovery was made in England. It was very gratifying. Now everyone more or less accepts the distinction.
Q What is the significance of this distinction in terms of helping people with memory loss?
A We now know that episodic memory is more vulnerable to damage and breakdown than semantic memory. It is the first thing to go in dementia. People suffering from diseases such as Alzheimer’s remember information from their past but don’t know what they did the night before. At one time it was thought that if there was no episodic memory, there could be no learning. This was the accepted dogma. But now we know that under proper conditions, individuals with amnesia can acquire new information and knowledge, despite the fact that they cannot remember anything about the occasion or occasions when they did such acquiring. Sometimes people who have lost their episodic memory relearn all or much of their own past. But when they do so, they know their own past the way you and I know Greek and Roman history, or any history we have learned from books. What remains lost is the warmth and intimacy that comes from true episodic memory. Episodic memory (the highest system) is special. Yet, this highest system cannot work independently of the lower systems (such as semantic memory), although the lower systems can work perfectly well without the higher system. This insight has led to cognitive rehabilitation strategies that help people with memory loss learn new information.
Q What are you currently working on?
A I am looking at what I call mental time travel – the ability of the human mind to think about the past and think about the future. A normal person can travel back in time and also think about what they will do tomorrow, and we take this for granted. But many
individuals with amnesia who do not remember their own past also cannot think about their own future. Thus, remembering the past and thinking about one’s future seem to be closely related. This is such a deep mystery and miracle because there is no known physical basis for it yet, but there must be. It is impossible for anything to happen in the mind that doesn’t happen in the brain, and we haven’t got a clue. Brain processes having to do with pure thought about the future have not been studied before. We’re doing it now, using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to look at the brains of young, healthy people while they think of the past and the future. It’s fascinating but challenging.
Q Has working at Baycrest had an influence on your work?
A Yes, it has definitely had an impact. Being surrounded by real-life problems has made me think more about the life cycle and the development of memory. My general education in my own field has improved greatly by being here. And getting older myself has also helped.
Related Links
- Dr. Endel Tulving
- Baycrest cognitive scientist Dr. Endel Tulving inducted into Canadian Medical Hall of Fame
- The Rotman Research Institute
- People with rare type of memory loss still sensitive to others, study shows