# Event-related Neuroimaging of Human Memory Formation

> **NIH NIH R01** · HARVARD UNIVERSITY · 2024 · $422,500

## Abstract

Project Summary
 The overarching goals of this project are to illuminate the nature and functions of episodic memory by
examining how retrieval of episodic memories supports cognitive functions that extend beyond simple recall of
past events, such as imagining future experiences, solving everyday problems, and making inferences about the
links among related events. Recent evidence indicates that the same core brain network is involved in both
remembering past experiences and imagining or simulating hypothetical future experiences. The proposed
experiments will use novel cognitive tasks and neuroscience-based measures, including both functional
magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS), to elucidate how specific
regions within this core network support constructive uses of episodic retrieval that underly future thinking,
problem solving, and associative inferences. The studies will also examine how some of these adaptive
functions can also lead to errors in episodic remembering.
 One set of studies will use a novel fMRI pattern similarity approach to clarify how two key regions in the
core brain network – the hippocampus and angular gyrus – reinstate episodic information from past
experiences when people imagine various kinds of future experiences. TMS will provide converging evidence
by targeting hippocampal activity, which should specifically impact episodic reinstatement. A second set of
studies will use a similar combination of fMRI pattern similarity and TMS approaches to revealing, for the first
time, how episodic information is reinstated when people try to address everyday personal problems, including
problems that are personally worrisome. These studies will draw on novel behavioral paradigms that recruit
episodic retrieval processes during personal problem solving. A third set of experiments will attempt to identify
the neural mechanisms underlying memory errors that result from adaptive use of episodic retrieval processes
that support the ability to make associative inferences about the relations among events by combining novel
behavioral paradigms with fMRI pattern similarity analysis.
 Overall, these experiments should enhance understanding of mechanisms involved in episodic retrieval,
simulation, and problem solving by helping to refine recently novel measures developed in recent research, and
could also provide insights that are relevant to clinical conditions in which episodic retrieval and simulation
deficits contribute to impairments in everyday cognitive function.

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10874683
- **Project number:** 5R01MH060941-23
- **Recipient organization:** HARVARD UNIVERSITY
- **Principal Investigator:** Daniel L Schacter
- **Activity code:** R01 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2024
- **Award amount:** $422,500
- **Award type:** 5
- **Project period:** 2000-03-15 → 2026-06-30

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10874683

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10874683, Event-related Neuroimaging of Human Memory Formation (5R01MH060941-23). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-22 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10874683. Licensed CC0.

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