Neural replay and the remembered present
A major challenge in cognitive neuroscience relates to the question of what precisely we encode and retrieve from memory. I will propose that what we encode are disentangled representations that enable us to make better sense of the present and better prediction regarding the future. I will go on to argue that this is realised is the brain via neural replay, by which I mean the sequential, fast, reactivation of acquired representations of world. In so-doing I will introduce an approach to the non-invasive measurement of neural replay in humans and go on to show how neural replay exploits disentangled representations to meet current task demands. I will also touch on the potential role of neural replay as an in-vivo neurophysiological marker of early neurodegenerative disease.
About the speaker
Ray Dolan is a Mary Kinross Professor of Neuropsychiatry and Director of the Max Planck Centre for Computational Psychiatry and Ageing, at University College London. His primary research interests include reward, learning and decision-making and their breakdown in psychopathology. He holds an honorary Professorship at the Humboldt University Berlin and is an External Member of the Max Planck Society. He is a Member of the Royal Irish Academy (MRIA) and a Fellow Royal Society (FRS). He is the recipient of numerous international awards including the Minerva Foundation Golden Brain Award, (2006), the Max Planck International Research Award (2007), the Klaus Joachim Zülch Prize (2013) and the Brain Prize (2017). He was awarded the 2019 Royal Society Ferrier Medal and Lecture.
