Biomedical subjects

M D Rugg

Publications and source records attributed to M D Rugg.

At least 55 records · Page 3Linked to original sources

PubMed1998

Electrophysiological dissociation of recency and recognition memory.

Event-related brain potentials (ERPs) were recorded during the test phases of two experiments. In experiment 1, subjects first studied two consecutively presented word lists. At test, they were presented with pairs of words, and were required to judge which word had been presented most recently. The test pairs were composed of two previously studied words, one drawn from each list, (Old+Old pairs), one previously studied and one new word (Old+New pairs), or two unstudied words (New+New pairs). At temporo-parietal electrodes, ERPs to Old+Old and Old+New pairs were both reliably more positive-going than those to New+New pairs. At electrode sites overlying prefrontal cortex, ERPs to Old+Old pairs attracting correct recency judgements were more positive, from around 300 ms onwards, than those elicited by the other classes of item, which did not differ from one another. In experiment 2, the test task was changed to one that required discrimination between Old+New items on the one hand, and Old+Old and New+New pairs on the other. ERPs to Old+Old and Old+New pairs once again differed from those to New+New pairs at temporo-parietal sites, but no differences were evident between the ERPs from frontal electrode sites. In line with the evidence from lesion studies, these findings suggest that judgements of relative recency depend upon processes, supported by the prefrontal cortex, additional to those that are necessary for recognition memory. They further suggest that these processes are activated rapidly and selectively in response to pairs of studied items when these must be discriminated on the basis of their relative recency of occurrence.

Adult↗

PubMed1998

Word repetition within- and across-visual fields: an event-related potential study.

A divided visual field (DVF) procedure was used to investigate the scalp distribution of the event-related potential (ERP) repetition effect. ERPs were recorded from 27 scalp sites whilst subjects (n = 20) discriminated between words and non-words presented to either the left (LVF) or the right (RVF) visual field. A proportion of the words were repeated on the trial immediately following their first presentation. In two within-field repetition conditions the two encounters with a word occurred in the same visual field (LVF or RVF). In two across-field repetition conditions, the two encounters with a word occurred in different visual fields. For both words and non-words, task performance was better for RVF presentations than for LVF presentations. In each repetition condition there was a positive-going shift in the ERP elicited by repeated words compared to that elicited by words on their first presentation. This ERP repetition effect was equivalent in magnitude and lateralised to the right hemisphere to an equivalent degree in all four repetition conditions. It is suggested that the ERP effects largely reflect the processing of visual form thought to occur predominately in the right hemisphere.

Adolescent↗

PubMed1998

Age effects on brain activity associated with episodic memory retrieval. An electrophysiological study.

Electrophysiological correlates of episodic memory retrieval (recollection) were investigated in a young (18-30 years) and an older group (62-79 years) of healthy subjects (n = 16 per group). At study, subjects listened to words spoken in either a male or a female voice, and were instructed to perform one of two tasks depending on the voice in which the item was spoken. At test, subjects made initial old/new judgements to visually presented words and, for words judged old, either indicated in which voice they had heard the word at study (source task), or whether the 'remembered' or 'knew' they had heard the word at study ('remember/know' task). The accuracy of the initial recognition decision did not differ between the two groups. However, young subjects were significantly more accurate in their source judgements than the older group. The magnitudes and topographical distributions of differences between event related potentials to successfully recollected words and new words were indistinguishable for the two tasks. These event-related potential effects were also equivalent in magnitude and scalp topography in the two age groups, the only difference between the groups being a relative delay in the onset of the effects at some electrode sites in the older subjects. These findings are consistent with the proposal that the processes supporting episodic retrieval, including those dependent upon the prefrontal cortex, are relatively unaffected by advancing age.

Acoustic Stimulation↗

PubMed1998

Convergent approaches to electrophysiological and hemodynamic investigations of memory.

The strengths and weaknesses of electrophysiological and hemodynamic methods for investigating neural activity associated with mnemonic processes are discussed, and an example is given of how the two classes of methods can be employed to provide complementary information about the neural basis of memory. The advantages of event-related fMRI over conventional functional neuroimaging approaches are illustrated in the context of a study of recognition memory. Finally, some of the issues that must be confronted by efforts to integrate electrophysiological and hemodynamic data in a formal sense are outlined.

Clinical Trials as Topic↗

PubMed1997

Recognition memory for words and pictures: an event-related potential study.

Event-related potentials (ERPs) were recorded during the test phase of recognition memory tests for words and pictures of objects. ERPs elicited by recognized items contained a temporo-parietally distributed positive shift (the parietal old/new effect), which was strongly left lateralized regardless of stimulus type. This finding suggests that the lateral distribution of the parietal old/new effect is unrelated to the lateralization of the memory functions supported by the medial temporal lobe memory system. The ERPs to pictures, but not to words, also demonstrated frontally distributed old/new effects, which shifted over time from a left- to a right-sided maximum. These effects may reflect the richer informational content associated with episodic memory for pictures.

Adult↗

PubMed1997

Brain regions supporting intentional and incidental memory: a PET study.

Regional brain activity associated with intentional and incidental memory retrieval was studied with PET. Previously studied and new words were presented in either an intentional or an incidental memory task. Type of task was crossed with an encoding manipulation ('deep' vs 'shallow') which varied the probability that studied items would be remembered. In both tasks, deeply encoded items were associated with greater activation in the left hippocampus than were items that had received shallow encoding, suggesting that the involvement of the hippocampus in memory retrieval is independent of whether remembering is intentional or incidental. Right prefrontal and bilateral parietal cortex were more activated during the international task than during the incidental task, irrespective of encoding condition. Thus, these regions play a more extensive role in memory retrieval when remembering is intentional.

Brain↗

PubMed1997

An event-related potential study of retroactive interference in memory.

Neural activity associated with overcoming retroactive interference in episodic memory was investigated with event-related brain potentials (ERPs). ERPs were recorded during a combined recognition/associative recall memory test in which subjects were required to identify previous studied words and recall their study associates. A retroactive interference condition (A-B, A-C, A-?) was compared with two control conditions A-B, C-D, A-? and A-B, A-B, A-?). No ERP effect specific to the interference condition was identified. ERPs to all three classes of old word differed however from those to new words. These differences involved two effects, one with a left parietal maximum that has been described before, and a left frontal effect of earlier onset which has not been reported previously. This latter effect may indicate a role for the left prefrontal cortex in associative retrieval.

Adult↗

PubMed1997

Event-related potentials and the recognition memory exclusion task.

Subjects heard words that were presented in either a male or a female voice, and were required to perform one of two encoding tasks according to the gender of the voice. At test studied words were presented visually, along with a set of words new to the experiment. Subjects were required to respond on one key to words belonging to one of the two classes of studied word (targets), and to respond on a different key both to words belonging to the other study class (non-targets), and to words new to the experiment. In comparison to the event-related potentials (ERPs) elicited by new words, the ERPs elicited by correctly detected targets exhibited two temporally and topographically distinct positive going effects: one of these was phasic, showed a parietal maximum, and was larger over the left than the right hemisphere. The second effect was more sustained in time, frontally distributed, and was larger over the right hemisphere. The ERPs elicited by correctly classified non-targets contained the parietal effect only. These findings confirm that retrieval of contextual information in tests of recognition memory (recollection) is associated with two distinct ERP modulations. While one of these may be closely tied to process necessary for recollection, the other may reflect less obligatory processes which operate on the products of successful retrieval.

Adolescent↗

PubMed1997

An event-related potential study of explicit memory on tests of cued recall and recognition.

The event-related potential (ERP) correlates of performance on test of word-stem cued recall and recognition memory were contrasted. ERPs elicited by stems attracting successful recall exhibited a sustained positive-going shift relative to ERPs elicited by stems completed with unstudied items. This positive shift was maximal at electrode sites on and adjacent to the midline. An equally sustained positive-going ERP modulation was observed for the recognition memory task in ERPs elicited by recognised 'old' items relative to ERPs elicited by correctly rejected 'new' items. The scalp topography of this effect shifted from a parietally distributed asymmetry favouring left hemisphere sites, to a frontally distributed effect maximal over midline and right hemisphere sites. The findings indicate that ERP correlates of explicit memory are task-dependent. The disparate ERP effects are interpreted as reflecting a common explicit retrieval mechanism which is sensitive to the nature of retrieval cues provided at test.

Adult↗

PubMed1997

An event-related potential study of memory for words spoken aloud or heard.

Subjects made old/new recognition judgements to visually presented words, half of which had been encountered in a prior study phase. For each word judged old, subjects made a subsequent source judgement, indicating whether they had pronounced the word aloud at study (spoken words), or whether they had heard the word spoken to them (heard words). Event-related potentials (ERPs) were compared for three classes of test item; words correctly judged to be new (correct rejections), and spoken and heard words that were correctly assigned to source (spoken hit/hit and heard hit/hit response categories). Consistent with previous findings (Wilding, E. L. and Rugg, M. D., Brain, 1996, 119, 889-905), two temporally and topographically dissociable components, with parietal and frontal maxima respectively, differentiated the ERPs to the hit/hit and correct rejection response categories. In addition, there was some evidence that the frontally distributed component could be decomposed into two distinct components, only one of which differentiated the two classes of hit/hit ERPs. The findings suggest that at least three functionally and neurologically dissociable processes can contribute to successful recovery of source information.

Adolescent↗

PubMed1997

The functional neuroanatomy of episodic memory.

Functional neuroimaging studies have revealed that effective encoding in episodic memory is associated with enhanced activity in left prefrontal cortex, whereas retrieval is accompanied by the enhancement of predominantly right-sided prefrontal activity. The extent of the contribution of prefrontal cortex to episodic memory, and the fact that the encoding and retrieval operations it supports are differentially lateralized, were unexpected on the basis of evidence from lesion studies. Such studies have highlighted the crucial role in episodic memory played by the hippocampus and related medial temporal lobe structures. Neuroimaging studies, however, have had only limited success in elucidating the role of the hippocampus in episodic memory. Refinements in experimental design and improved spatial resolution should promote rapid future progress with respect to this issue.

Brain↗

PubMed1997

ERP repetition effects in indirect and direct tasks: effects of age and interitem lag.

Event-related potentials (ERPs) were recorded for visually presented words in young and older participants while they performed two tasks. In the indirect task, participants responded to occasional target words. Some of the nontarget words were repeated after a single intervening trial, and others were repeated after a mean of 10 trials. In the direct task participants responded to every item, discriminating between words presented for the first and the second times. Compared with ERPs to unrepeated words, those to words repeated in the indirect task after either lag were more positive in both participant groups. For the short lag, this effect was larger among the older participants. In the direct task, words repeated after either lag elicited a positive shift in the ERPs of the young participants. In the older participants, short lag repeats elicited a repetition effect, but smaller than the equivalent effect among the young participants. Long lag repeats failed to elicit a repetition effect in the direct task in the older participants. The findings show that word repetition in these tasks reflects the modulation of two ERP components, which differ in their sensitivity to age-related changes in memory function.

Adult↗

PubMed1996

A multivariate analysis of evoked responses in EEG and MEG data.

This paper presents a multivariate analysis of evoked responses and their spatiotemporal dynamics as measured with electro- or magnetoencephalography. This analysis uses standard techniques (ManCova) to make possible statistical inference about differential responses, after the data have been transformed using singular value decomposition. The generality of this approach is limited only by the assumptions implicit in the general linear model and can range from simple analyses like Hotelling's T2 test (in comparing evoked responses among different conditions) to complex analyses of a multivariate regression type (e.g., characterizing the response components associated with a behavioral or psychophysical parameter). To illustrate the technique we have characterized time-dependent changes (both within and between trials) in magnetic fields, evoked by self-paced movements. Our illustrative analysis showed that movement-evoked components were less prone to adaptation than premovement components, suggesting that functionally distinct (preparatory and early executive) biomagnetic signals show differential adaptation.

Analysis of Variance↗

PubMed1996

An event-related potential study of word-stem cued recall.

Event-related potentials (ERPs) were recorded from 13 scalp sites while subjects attempted to recall studied words using word-stems. If recall failed, stems were to be completed with the first suitable word to come to mind. To distinguish between correct completions accompanied and unaccompanied by explicit memory, subjects were required to make an overt recognition ("old/new") judgement for each completion. Semantically studied words were associated with higher levels of recall and recognition than were words subjected to non-semantic study. The sole ERP effect was a sustained positive shift in ERPs evoked by stems attracting correct completions that were correctly judged to be old. The shift was anteriorly distributed, and onset was around 300 ms post stimulus. It is interpreted as a reflection of processes either contributing to, or contingent upon, explicit memory retrieval.

Adolescent↗

PubMed1996

Event-related potentials and the recollection of associative information.

Event-related potentials (ERPs) were recorded from 13 scalp sites during the performance of an associative recall task. At study, subjects were presented with a series of word pairs and were required to incorporate the two members of each pair into a sentence. At test, the first members of each pair were presented intermixed with an equal number of unstudied items. Subjects were required to discriminate between new and studied (old) words and, for each word judged old, to attempt to recall the word with which it had been associated at study. Compared to the ERPs elicited by new words, the ERPs elicited by words correctly judged to be old and for which the associate was correctly recalled showed a sustained, positive-going shift (the "parietal old/new effect"). This effect was strongly lateralised to the left hemisphere and was maximal at temporo-parietal electrodes. The effect was absent in ERPs elicited by words that were correctly judged to be old, but for which the studied associate could not be recalled. The findings are taken as support for the idea that the parietal old/new effect reflects neural activity associated with the recollection of specific past episodes, and hence that the effect may index retrieval operations supported by the medial temporal lobe memory system.

Adult↗

PubMed1996

An event-related potential study of recognition memory with and without retrieval of source.

Event-related potentials (ERPs) were recorded during the test phase of a recognition memory task in two experiments. In both experiments subjects made initial old/new judgements to visually presented words, and for words judged old, indicated in which of two voices (male/female) the words had been heard at study. In the second experiment only subjects had the option to signal that they were uncertain about the status of a test word. Two positive-going ERP effects differentiated the ERPs evoked by correctly recognized old words from those evoked by words correctly judged new. The two effects differed in their scalp topography and time course, and were both of greater magnitude in the ERPs evoked by recognized words for which a correct voice judgement was made. The findings are consistent with the view that multiple neural systems underlie the ability to recognize an item and to recall its study context. However, the findings offer little support for the view, articulated in certain 'dual-process' models of recognition memory, that recognition judgements with and without retrieval of study context depend upon qualitatively different memory processes or systems.

Analysis of Variance↗

PubMed1996

Differential activation of the prefrontal cortex in successful and unsuccessful memory retrieval.

Six subjects underwent PET scans while they performed three versions of a recognition memory test for words and three versions of a control task. In each memory condition, the subjects discriminated between words presented in a prescan study list and words new to the experiment. During the 30 s scanning interval, the ratio of old and new words was 0:20, 4:16 or 16:4, depending on the experimental condition. Outside this interval, the ratio was 50:50 in all three conditions. The requirement in the control task was to discriminate between two character strings, the ratios of which were also manipulated during the 30 s scanning interval. Employing the control task as a covariate, analysis with statistical parametric mapping revealed that regional cerebral blood flow (rCBF) covaried with increasing density of old items in three regions of prefrontal cortex: right dorsolateral [Brodmann area (BA) 9/46], right medial (BA 32/8) and bilateral frontopolar cortex (BA 10). It is concluded that the prefrontal cortex, especially in the right hemisphere, is more active when a retrieval attempt succeeds than when it fails. This finding is consistent with the idea that the prefrontal cortex supports processes that operate selectively on the products of memory retrieval.

Adult↗

PubMed1996

A comparison of the electrophysiological effects of formal and repetition priming.

Three experiments investigated the electrophysiological consequences of repetition (e.g., scandal-scandal, buple-buple) and formal (e.g., scan-scandal, bup-buple) priming using words and nonwords. In each experiment, repetition and formal priming resulted in positive-going shifts in the event-related potential (ERP) that onset at approximately 200 ms poststimulus and were initially of similar magnitude. Subsequently, the repetition effect became larger than the formal priming effect. Although the word and nonword formal priming effects and the nonword repetition effects were greatest over midline and right hemisphere sites, the word repetition effects were greatest over the midline. It is suggested that the positive-going shift seen in the repetition and formal priming conditions was a modulation of the well-documented N400 component of the ERP. The topographic differences between the priming effects may have reflected differences in the nature of the representations to which cognitive operations are applied rather than differences in the nature of the operations themselves.

Adult↗