# Human hippocampal contributions to rapid encoding-retrieval interactions during memory formation

> **NIH NIH R01** · UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO · 2024 · $647,452

## Abstract

Project Summary/Abstract
Episodic memory impairment is a serious challenge for individuals with neurological and psychiatric disorders
that impact the hippocampus, including epilepsy, brain injury, neurodegeneration, schizophrenia, and PTSD.
The development of effective treatments will require better understanding of brain mechanisms that support
memory formation, storage, and retrieval. The goal of this project is to improve such understanding by testing a
hypothesis about the role of the human hippocampus and its interactions with large-scale brain networks in
memory formation. Episodic memory formation is a temporally extended process whereby individuals actively
sample information in the environment via saccadic eye movements (for visual information), bind this
information into an evolving memory representation, and then use this memory representation to inform
subsequent viewing of information, and so on. Although the necessary role of the hippocampus in episodic
memory formation is well established, little is known regarding how it participates in the extended process of
memory formation that occurs during active sampling. This represents a knowledge gap in mechanistic
understanding of episodic memory formation, as active sampling is the dominant manner in which memories
are created. This project tests the role of the human hippocampus in providing online representation of
episodic content and providing the top-down signals to brain networks for visuospatial attention and visual
processing needed to drive visual sampling for the formation of coherent episodic memories. This hypothesis
will be tested in several experiments that measure and manipulate hippocampal activity within eye-tracking
tasks designed to isolate the interplay between memory and visual sampling during memory formation. These
experiments will be performed in individuals with epilepsy undergoing neurosurgical procedures as part of
clinical care, as this provides invasive recordings of neural activity (iEEG) from the hippocampus and other
regions of interest with temporal resolution that matches the rapid pace of eye movements. The temporal
resolution of iEEG is key to addressing the hypotheses concerning how the hippocampus drives visual
sampling, in addition to responding to it. Direct electrical stimulation through the iEEG electrodes will also be
used to test the necessary role of hippocampal processing in driving active visual sampling. By rigorously
testing the role of hippocampus in interaction with large-scale networks during the process of memory
formation that occurs via active sampling, this project aims to better understand mechanisms relevant to the
disruptions of memory formation that occur in neurological and psychiatric disorders. These findings could
inform technological approaches to treat memory disorders.

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10894020
- **Project number:** 5R01MH128552-03
- **Recipient organization:** UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO
- **Principal Investigator:** JOEL L VOSS
- **Activity code:** R01 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2024
- **Award amount:** $647,452
- **Award type:** 5
- **Project period:** 2022-09-15 → 2027-06-30

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10894020

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10894020, Human hippocampal contributions to rapid encoding-retrieval interactions during memory formation (5R01MH128552-03). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-26 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10894020. Licensed CC0.

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