Grant: Project Grant

We live in a noisy world and often have to identify people, places and things with only brief and partial sensory input. We can do so because a key brain region in our temporal lobe - the hippocampus - is able to take noisy sense input and, based on our excellent memory, correctly guess at the input. In this way, we can identify individuals even if seen from a distance and only briefly. Damage to the temporal lobe and neurological problems such as temporal lobe epilepsy can disrupt this important process. This grant application proposes to study this fundamental aspect of memory and therefore start to address how to maintain optimal recognition in aging and in recovery from neurological disorders involving the temporal lobe.