Our main research goal is to elucidate mechanisms by which thalamic cells and circuits contribute to learning and memory.
‘All the intellectual value for us of a state of mind depends on our after-memory of it.’
William James
Thalamic Networks and the Mechanisms of Learning and Memory
The memories that we form every day, our episodic memories, would have limited value if they were simply transient records of everyday experiences. Instead, new episodic memories formed by the hippocampus are stabilized and integrated with prior knowledge in the neocortex through a consolidation process that promotes rule abstraction and generalization, enhancing the adaptive value of episodic memory.
Our basic hypothesis is that thalamocortical circuits facilitate this process, allowing mammals to learn and update the internal mental models of the world that are the foundation of adaptive and intelligent behavior.
