BIOL 1610/1615

When Learning and Remembering Compete: A Functional MRI Study

Research Article Summary
Claire E. Thixton

Introduction
It is well understood that the hippocampus is a vital component to human memory (Guzowski). However, in every human individual memory remains uniquely defined because of its links to specific places, events, people, etc. Researchers have spent great lengths of time trying to understand how we remember singular pieces of information. This information is critical in future medical research as it could provide links to devastating conditions like Alzheimers. Recently, because of the commonality between learning and remembering, questions have begun to arise about the relationship between the two processes, and the impact they have on memory research as a whole. Through various studies of neural images over the past few years, scientists have discovered that there is some interference between when humans learn new information and when they are recalling old information. Four Amsterdam neuroscientists decided to test a hypothesis that learning and remembering compete when both processes happen within a brief period of time (Huljbers).

Hypothesis

There were several hypotheses that were drawn before the experiments based on preliminary research and various other studies done with similar proposals. They presumed that learning and remembering would in fact compete, and that the results would be demonstrated and clearly visible through neuroimaging techniques. They also predicted that the two opposing

behaviors would couple with suppression of certain brain functions in the areas that were involved with the various tasks done in the experiments.

Materials and Methods

In order to create an environment where both learning and remembering would occur simultaneously, a paradigm (specific pattern) was used. Originally there was proposed one behavioral experiment that would test the competition between learning and remembering. The experiment had a scene encoding phase, which the participants tried to remember a specific computer generated image, coupled with a word encoding/retrieval phase, where they were asked to remember a series of words while also making decisions about various items presented to them. Through the first set of experiments the neuroscientists discovered the critical variable of attention span amongst their participants. In order to ensure that attention did not bear any effect on the results, a second set of behavioral experiments were proposed. The spatial scenes were replaced with visual attention tasks that required the participants to pin-point specific targets within the task.

Results
Through the experiments they tested both with word association and scene association by presenting the two together through a computerized interface. The first experiment proved that when one process was occurring, the opposing process was impaired quite significantly. With this experiment, the neuroscientists also discovered a critical secondary hypothesis: does the competition between learning and remembering have to do with a persons capacity to pay

attention? Through this, a second behavioral experiment was born where the scene association was replaced with a visual target detection task (Huljbers). The results gave way to a variety of information, including insight on how we are able to learn and remember events and ideas, as well as the anatomical reasons behind why these processes occur the way they do.

Discussion
In spite of some unforeseen variables (for instance, the participants attention span), the results fairly accurately concluded that within a short time frame, the processes of learning and remembering would in fact compete against each other. It was also concluded that retrieval of various information can induce forgetting. The results accurately showed that learning and remembering were possible in every participant. All of these conclusions provide a great deal of insight and influence on future memory research. Knowing the impact of remembering on learning and vis-versa, could explain inconsistencies in other research projects where variables that influenced both processes were used. The experiments also emphasize what a true phenomenon memory really is and how much we still have to learn.

Bibliography Guzowski. How Brain Remembers Single Events. UC Irvine, 18 March 2009. Huljbers, Willem. "When Learning and Remembering Compete." PLoS Biology (2009): 63-70.