The 2011 - 2012 academic year includes both fall and spring CRAM meetings, as usual. The fall meeting focused on the phenomena and characteristcs of superior human memory. The spring meeting will focus on oscillations as a means of coordination of neuronal ensembles within and between brain areas as a substrate of memory processing.


Spring 2012 CRAM meeting
Wednesday, May 30, 2012
BU Center for Memory and Brain: Cummington Street, Boston, MA
24 Cummington Street, Room B01 (street parking or Green Line Blanford St stop).
Click here for map
Room B01

Registration is free but required at http://www.bostonmemory.org

1:00pm Introduction, Dr. Howard Eichenbaum
1:15pm Dr. Michael Hasselmo, Boston University, “Oscillations in cortical-hippocampal interactions that support memory”
2:15pm Brief Discussion
2:30pm Break 2:45pm Dr. Elizabeth Buffalo, Emory University, Atlanta, GA, "Neural codes for memory and space in the monkey medial temporal lobe"
3:45pm Discussion
4:00pm Poster session, reception, mingling (with refreshments)

We have obtained a larger room so please feel free to invite interested colleagues.

Click here for a pdf of the program.



Fall 2011 CRAM meeting
Wednesday, December 7, 2011
BU Center for Memory and Brain: Cummington Street, Boston, MA

2 Cummington Street, Room 109 (street parking or Green Line Blanford St stop).

Click here for map

Superior human memory
1:00pm Introduction, Drs. Howard Eichenbaum and Dan Schacter
1:15pm Dr. James L. McGaugh, Center for Neurobiology of Learning and Memory, Department of Neurobiology and Behavior, University of California, Irvine, “Making Lasting Memories”
1:55pm Brief Discussion
2:05pm Dr. K. Anders Ericsson, FSU Cognitive & Expertise Labs, Department of Psychology, Florida State University, Talahassee, FL, "The Challenge of Studying Complex Memory Skills"
2:45pm Discussion
3:15pm Poster session, mingling, refreshments


Abstracts
J.L. McGaugh
Emotionally arousing experiences are well remembered. Extensive evidence indicates that that adrenal stress hormones released by arousal regulate memory consolidation via converging influences on beta-noradrenergic activation within the basolateral amygdala (BLA). Activation of the BLA enhances memory via projections to other brain regions involved in processing different aspects of memory. The findings of both animal and human studies provide compelling evidence that stress-induced activation of the BLA and its projections to other brain regions plays a critical role in ensuring that emotionally significant experiences are remembered. Our recent research has identified individuals who have very strong and accurate memory: They have detailed memories of personal experiences and public events for most of the days of their lives. Current research is investigating the structure (MRI) of these individuals’ brains to determine whether specific brain systems are involved in enabling such strong autobiographical memories.


K.A. Ericsson
Traditional research has focused on average memory performance for standardized tasks by groups of untrained participants. The goal has been to identify generalizable memory capacities. These theories and the associated methodology have been less successful in describing and accounting for exceptional memory performance, such as improvements on the digit span of over 1,000% with practice (Ericsson, Chase, & Faloon, 1980). To identify the complex structure of acquired memory skills of a single participant Bill Chase and I developed a new methodology that combines protocol analysis and designed experimental tests.

In my talk I will discuss how Long-Term Working Memory (Ericsson & Kintsch, 1995) has been generalized to explain the acquisition and structure of memory for very large bodies of information, such as accurate recall of over 60,000 decimals of the mathematical constant pi. A general approach to the study of acquisition of expert performance in many other domains is proposed.