Memory engrams
Experiences leave lasting changes in the brain. How do those changes form a memory that can be preserved, revised, and retrieved later?
Memory and learning
Within Memory and learning · Search all subjects
Working memory maintenance
We can hold information briefly after it disappears. Which neural processes keep it available for the next action?
Biological credit assignment
A behavioral outcome depends on many neurons. How does learning change the particular cells and connections responsible for it?
Savings in motor adaptation
Relearning a movement adjustment can be faster than learning it first. Which memories and processes produce that advantage?
Awake hippocampal replay
While an animal pauses, its brain can rapidly replay activity associated with routes. What does that replay causally accomplish?
Compositional cognitive maps
A familiar room or obstacle can be reused in a new layout. How does the brain combine known parts into a useful map?
Statistical learning
People pick up patterns through exposure. Which learning processes are shared across tasks and senses, and which are specialized, remains unsettled.
Infantile amnesia
Infants can form memories, yet adults recall few early-life episodes. How development changes memory persistence and later access remains unresolved.
Transitive inference
Learning that A outranks B and B outranks C can let us compare A with C. How do people build and revise this knowledge?
Completed-intention aftereffects
A reminder can bring back an action that is already finished. What determines whether that memory merely interrupts us or prompts a mistaken repeat?
Déjà vu
A new situation can feel familiar while you know that it is new. How does that clash arise?
Placebo analgesia
Expectations and learned treatment associations can reduce pain. Which mechanisms determine the effect and how long it lasts?
Salmon olfactory imprinting
A salmon learns stream odors as a juvenile and uses them years later when returning to spawn. How does that memory survive the replacement of sensory cells?
Spacing effect
Repeating a word later can help more than repeating it immediately. Which changes across the gap determine lasting verbal memory?
Retrieval-induced forgetting
Practicing some items can make related unpracticed items harder to recall. Is their access inhibited, or does the new retrieval context favor competitors?
Tip-of-the-tongue states
A known word feels close but will not come out. When does another retrieval attempt clear the block, and when does the same block return?