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Context-specific activation of hippocampus and SN/VTA by reward is related to enhanced long-term memory for embedded objects

Loh, E; Kumaran, D; Koster, R; Berron, D; Dolan, R; Duzel, E; (2016) Context-specific activation of hippocampus and SN/VTA by reward is related to enhanced long-term memory for embedded objects. Neurobiology of Learning and Memory , 134 (Part A) pp. 65-77. 10.1016/j.nlm.2015.11.018. Green open access

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Abstract

Animal studies indicate that hippocampal representations of environmental context modulate reward-related processing in the substantia nigra and ventral tegmental area (SN/VTA), a major origin of dopamine in the brain. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) in humans, we investigated the neural specificity of context-reward associations under conditions where the presence of perceptually similar neutral contexts imposed high demands on a putative hippocampal function, pattern separation. The design also allowed us to investigate how contextual reward enhances long-term memory for embedded neutral objects. SN/VTA activity underpinned specific context-reward associations in the face of perceptual similarity. A reward-related enhancement of long-term memory was restricted to the condition where the rewarding and the neutral contexts were perceptually similar, and in turn was linked to co-activation of the hippocampus (subfield DG/CA3) and SN/VTA. Thus, an ability of contextual reward to enhance memory for focal objects is closely linked to context-related engagement of hippocampal-SN/VTA circuitry.

Type: Article
Title: Context-specific activation of hippocampus and SN/VTA by reward is related to enhanced long-term memory for embedded objects
Open access status: An open access version is available from UCL Discovery
DOI: 10.1016/j.nlm.2015.11.018
Publisher version: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.nlm.2015.11.018
Language: English
Additional information: © 2015 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Inc. This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
Keywords: Context, Dopamine, Hippocampus, Memory, Pattern-separation, Reward
UCL classification: UCL
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Brain Sciences
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Brain Sciences > Div of Psychology and Lang Sciences
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Brain Sciences > Div of Psychology and Lang Sciences > Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Brain Sciences > UCL Queen Square Institute of Neurology
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Brain Sciences > UCL Queen Square Institute of Neurology > Imaging Neuroscience
URI: https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/1474362
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