Randy is Principal
Investigator of the Cognitive Neuroscience Laboratory (CNL)
and Professor of Psychology at Harvard University and
member of the Center for Brain Science, where he is
affiliated with the Athinoula A. Martinos Center for
Biomedical Imaging at the Massachusetts General Hospital /
Harvard Medical School as well as an Investigator for the
Howard Hughes Medical Institute. His research applies
neuroimaging techniques to explore brain areas involved in
human memory. He has recently focused on three interrelated
questions. The first question surrounds how human
prefrontal cortex may participate in the formation and
retrieval of memories, and how these structures may
interact with medial temporal regions. This work originates
from human lesions studies that note damage to prefrontal
cortex can cause memory difficulties associated with the
strategic aspects of memory formation and retrieval. The
second line of inquiry relates to how the human brain codes
the remnants (the echo) of a memory while it is being
remembered. We all know from our daily experiences that
sounds and visual images can be remembered from the past
and are often vividly experienced. However, it is largely a
mystery how the human brain revives and represents these
perceptions. This issue is being explored in its most basic
form by testing hypotheses such as whether human visual
cortex becomes active when one tries to retrieve a visual
(image-based) memory and whether auditory cortex becomes
active when a sound from the past is remembered. The final
research question targets how activity within the human
brain changes when items are repeated. Activity appears to
reduce in certain, specific brain regions when items (such
as a word) are repeatedly presented to a subject and the
subject becomes faster at processing that item. Randy has
also recently become interested in how information about
the healthy brain can help to guide our understanding of
damaged and diseased brain states such as occur after a
stroke or during the progression of Dementia of the
Alzheimer Type (DAT). A final focus of his work is to
develop novel methods for functional neuroimaging -- such
as those employed during event-related
fMRI.
Wheeler, M.E., and Buckner,
R.L. (2003) Functional dissociation among components of
remembering: Control, perceived oldness, and content.
Journal of Neuroscience, 23: 3869-3880. [medline abstract]
Shannon, B.J., and Buckner, R.L. (2004) Functional-anatomic
correlates of memory retrieval that suggest nontraditional
processing roles for multiple distinct regions within
posterior parietal cortex. Journal of Neuroscience, 24:
10084-10092. [medline abstract]
Buckner, R.L. (2004) Memory and executive function in aging
and AD: Multiple factors that cause decline and reserve
factors that compensate. Neuron, 44: 195-208.
[medline abstract]
Buckner, R.L., Snyder, A.Z., Shannon, B.J., LaRossa, G.,
Sachs, R., Fotenos, A.F., Sheline, Y.I., Klunk, W.E.,
Mathis, C.A., Morris, J.C., and Mintun, M.A. (2005)
Molecular, structural, and functional characterization of
Alzheimer’s disease: Evidence for a relationship between
default activity, amyloid, and memory. Journal of
Neuroscience, 25: 7709-7717. [medline abstract]
Wagner, A.D., Shannon, B.J., Kahn, I., Buckner, R.L. (2005)
Parietal lobe contributions to episodic memory retrieval.
Trends in Cognitive Science, 9: 445-453.
[medline abstract]
Kirchhoff, B.A., and Buckner, R.L. (2006)
Functional-anatomic correlates of individual differences in
memory. Neuron, 51: 263-74. [medline abstract]
Vincent, J.L., Snyder, A.Z., Fox, M.D., Shannon, B.J.,
Andrews, J.R., Raichle, M.E., and Buckner R.L. (2006)
Coherent spontaneous activity identifies a
hippocampal-parietal memory network. Journal of
Neurophysiology. 6:3517-31. [medline abstract]
Buckner, R.L. and Carroll, D.C. (2007) Self-projection and
the brain. Trends in Cognitive Science, 11: 49-57.
[medline abstract]
