Overview
This project forms a multi-site research collaboration to carry out verbal and spatial memory experiments in patient volunteers to better understand the neural bases of human memory, employing direct electrical brain stimulation as a tool to study those dynamics and their relationship to memory performance.
Description
The study protocol outlines fundamental experiments to understand the neural dynamics underlying human memory and use direct brain stimulation as a tool (intervention) to study the relationship between those dynamics and memory performance. The investigators will collect recording and stimulation data from 250 patient volunteers as they perform carefully-matched verbal and spatial memory tasks. During non-stimulation sessions, the investigators will measure correlative neural biomarkers of memory encoding and retrieval using standard clinical depth electrodes and micro-wire recordings. To test the causal role of these biomarkers, the investigators will employ direct brain stimulation to briefly modulate neural activity, and measure ensuing changes in behavioral performance. With a set of causal biomarkers and predictive models in hand, the investigators will finally ask whether model-driven stimulation paradigms offer the investigators the ability to reliably modulate neural activity, and consequent behavior, in real-time.
Eligibility
Inclusion Criteria:
Subjects will be enrolled who are expected to undergo intracranial electroencephalographic monitoring as part of a standard clinical procedure for the treatment of pharmacologically resistant epilepsy.
Exclusion Criteria:
The following individuals will be excluded:
- Any cognitive impairments that would limit their ability to participate in the memory testing,
- Any physical disability that would limit their ability to perform cognitive tasks within normal limits,
- Any psychiatric condition that would limit their ability to provide informed consent or to perform cognitive tasks within normal limits,
- Any medical condition that would, in the investigator's opinion, limit the subject's participation in the study,
- Who are pregnant,
- Unable or unwilling to provide informed consent.