Striatal and hippocampal contributions to disruption of memory functions in neurodegeneration

This project will utilise behavioural and neuroimaging techniques to dissociate contributions of the striatum, a subcortical area of the forebrain, and the hippocampus, a medial-temporal lobe structure, to learning and memory functions in healthy and clinical populations. Both the striatum and the hippocampus play an important role in learning and memory. For example, the striatum has been shown to be involved in learning stimulus-response associations while the hippocampus has been shown to bind different features, such as object identity and location, in memory. It is likely that both of these structures flexibly interact in real life tasks, such as spatial navigation, where both learned response patterns and internal spatial maps can be used to effectively guide towards the goal. The striatum and the hippocampus are both affected by neurodegenerative conditions, such as Parkinson's (PD) and Alzheimer's disease (AD), respectively, which result in different learning and memory impairments. The effectiveness of treatments for these disorders depends on how early they are detected. Although there has been a shift towards the use of more sensitive cognitive testing in addition to crude neuropsychological scales for diagnosis in recent years, if the cognitive tasks used are not specific enough to impairments in one of these memory systems, it is likely that the other area can compensate, which would prevent early detection of deficits. The aim of this project is to develop and test a set of specific and sensitive cognitive tasks to disentangle striatal and hippocampal contributions to learning and memory. Similar tasks could be then used to detect selective deficits in early PD and AD. To allow the testing of the neural mechanisms these tasks tap upon, the student will undergo training in neuroimaging techniques, including magnetoencephalography (MEG) and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), and statistical analysis.