Guest Lecture: Kinga Igloi (Geneva)
Navigation in a complex environment can rely on the use of different spatial strategies. We have focused on allocentric (or encoding relationships among environmental cues, movements, and goal location) and sequential egocentric (or associative memory for body turns at spatially distinct choice points) strategies in a spatial paradigm in humans. We will first show that these two strategies are acquired in parallel during learning (Igloi et al., 2009). Next we use functional MRI to show that activation of the right hippocampus predicts the use of an allocentric spatial representation, and activation of the left hippocampus predicts the use of a sequential egocentric representation (Igloi et al., 2010).
To end with, we will focus on the effect of sleep on associative memory consolidation. Sleep plays a crucial role in the consolidation of newly acquired memories. Yet, how our brain selects the noteworthy information that will be consolidated during sleep remains largely unknown. Here we will show that reward regulates hippocampal-prefrontal memory networks during daytime sleep (Igloi et al., 2015).
References:
Igloi K, Doeller CF, Berthoz A, Rondi-Reig L, Burgess N. 2010. Lateralized human hippocampal activity predicts navigation based on sequence or place memory. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A.
Igloi K, Gaggioni G, Sterpenich V, Schwartz S. 2015. A nap to recap or how reward regulates hippocampal-prefrontal memory networks during daytime sleep in humans. Elife 4.
Igloi K, Zaoui M, Berthoz A, Rondi-Reig L. 2009. Sequential egocentric strategy is acquired as early as allocentric strategy: Parallel acquisition of these two navigation strategies. Hippocampus.
Kinga IGLOI, PhD
Laboratory for Neurology and Imaging of Cognition
Department of Neurosciences
University of Geneva
Geneva, Switzerland
