Scientists, Scientific Associates, and Clinician Associates

Research Focus

• My lab is devoted to understanding disturbances of human memory in people with brain damage caused by trauma or disease. We use various methodologies to investigate the cognitive neuroscience of memory, including behavioural and lesion analyses, brain imaging (structural and functional MRI), psychophysiology (SCR) and electrophysiology (ERP, MEG). We focus on three main questions. One is whether parts of the brain that were thought to be “slow learners” are in fact capable of forming new memories rapidly, if provided with the right learning conditions. We are particularly exploring the influence of having prior knowledge on accelerating new learning. In addressing this question, we are working with individuals who suffer from memory loss (amnesia), as well as testing healthy individuals using fMRI and MEG. The second, related, area of research concerns different types of prior knowledge, how they are represented in the brain and how they can be brought online to support new learning. Here we are focusing on how the brain prepares itself to process information, using measures of cross-regional connectivity before information is presented. Finally, we are interested in how we know whether our memories are true. Measuring electrical neural activity from patients with confabulation, a rare memory disorder that leads to false memories, we have identified very rapid neural signatures that are pre-conscious and that influence our conscious experience of the veracity of our memories.