לוח שנה משולב

How do humans build a coherent understanding of complex, real-world experiences as they unfold over time? In this talk, I will describe how we quantify narrative comprehension behaviorally, revealing how past events are continuously integrated into an evolving understanding of the present. I will relate these behavioral measures to neural activity measured using fMRI, showing that the reactivation of past events at narrative event boundaries reflects participants’ ongoing understanding of a narrative. I will further demonstrate that individual differences in the neural reactivation of past events predict creative thinking - the ability to draw connections between disparate pieces of information. Finally, I will suggest that reactivation at event boundaries provides a neural mechanism through which the brain constructs and updates an internal model of unfolding experience, allowing us not only to integrate information across time, but also to reconstruct past experiences from memory.  

Abstract: Breathing is a vital rhythmic motor behavior with a surprisingly broad influence on the brain and body. The apparent simplicity of breathing belies a complex neural control system, the breathing central pattern generator (bCPG), that exhibits diverse operational modes to regulate gas exchange and coordinate breathing with an array of behaviors. In my lecture, I will focus on selected advances in our understanding of the bCPG. At the core of the bCPG is the preBötzinger Complex (preBötC), which drives inspiratory rhythm via an unexpectedly sophisticated emergent mechanism. Synchronization dynamics underlying preBötC rhythmogenesis imbue the system with robustness and lability. These dynamics are modulated by inputs from throughout the brain and generate widely distributed rhythmic, patterned activity. Connectivity and emerging literature support a link among breathing, emotion, and cognition that is becoming experimentally tractable. These advances hold great potential for elucidating the function and dysfunction of breathing and other mammalian neural circuits.

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