In extensive neuropsychological studies employing voxel-based lesion-symptom mapping, we have assessed the effects of PPC lesions on performance in item recognition memory (Haramati et al., 2008) and cued recall of pair associate learning (Ben-Zvi et al., 2015). We have also shown that different frontal and parietal substrates support correct episodic recognition of unknown faces vs. avoidance of false alarms regarding faces not previously seen (Ben Zvi Feldman et al., 2021). We are currently using similar methods to assess PPC involvement in associative recognition, and expanding our scope to characterizing the retrieval functions of other cortical areas implicated in recollective processes, such as lateral temporal lobes and medial prefrontal cortex.

In parallel, we have conducted electrophysiological studies to track to contributions of early and late retrieval processes to associative retrieval via cued recall and associative recognition (Tibon et al. 2012, 2014a,b,c,d). Our focus has been understanding how complexity of associations – across sensory modalities and conditions of semantic relatedness – dictates the processes by which we remember them.

In collaboration with colleagues Prof. Rik Henson and Dr. Andrea Greve at the University of Cambridge, we are currently examining how factors of schematic expectancy and surprise impact on encoding of associative relations and their brain substrates

These projects have been funded by the Israel Science Foundation and the German-Israeli Foundation for Scientific Research and Development.

In a series of behavioral studies, have examined the boundary conditions for interfering with the reconsolidation of episodic memory, the application of reconsolidation interference to treatment of phobias and maladaptive behaviors, and the interaction between reconsolidation interference and memory suppression. Our work points to the challenges of engendering reconsolidation interference with purely behavioral interventions (Levy et al., 2018; Batashvili et al., 2022)

Further to our recent demonstration that EEG neurofeedback to upregulate theta power can strengthen procedural learning and episodic memory (Rozengurt et al., 2016; 2017), we are currently investigating the enhancement of early consolidation of spatial memory by neurofeedback (Shtoots et al, 2021). We have also begun to use transcranial alternating current stimulation (tACS) and audio-visual entrainment to upregulate brain theta band activity, and find that theta tACS is effective in improving subsequent episodic and semantic memory.

A great deal of research has focused on memory for visual and auditory stimuli, but far fewer studies have explored the sense of touch. Within this limited research area, memory for textures has been previously unexplored. This novel series of studies investigates our memory for textures, beginning with identifying our memory span, and continuing towards multimodal associative memory incorporating tactile and other stimuli. We hope to proceed to explore the neurophysiological correlates and brain substrates of tactile texture memory.

Remembering associative relations is the aspect of episodic memory showing the greatest sensitivity to the effects of healthy aging. However, the modulation of aging effects by modality relationships between the to-be-associated memoranda has not been systematically investigated. We have demonstrated that healthy aging challenges avoidance of time-space-identity relations associative false alarms far more than it does endorsement of experienced stimuli (Hugeri et al., 2021). We are further examining associative memory performance of healthy older and young adults, manipulating modality relations (cross-modal picture-sound vs. uni-modal picture pairs), using cued recall and associative recognition assays for parallel materials. We aim to compare aging effects on associative memory as expressed using different retrieval methods and using cross- versus uni-modal memoranda.
We are also examining savings and forgetting effect in order to examine whether healthy aging has equal effects on encoding, maintenance, and retrieval processes for associations.

In a battery of prior studies (Erel and Levy, 2016; Erel et al., 2019, 2020; Zivony et al., 2019, 2020), we demonstrated how healthy aging affects the alerting and orienting of spatial attention, as well as sensitivity to spatial distribution.

These projects have been funded by the Chief Scientist Office, Israel Ministry of Health.

Non-motor symptoms, such as cognitive dysfunction, have been recognized as a prominent part of Parkinson's Disease (PD), and can precede diagnosis of motor symptoms by several decades. We have begun to investigate how various aspects of attention – including alerting, exogenous and endogenous orienting, and executive control – are affected in the various clinical stage of PD. We hope not only to reveal how disease progression affects attention, but also to support the development of better diagnostic and evaluative tools for PD, as well as achieving better understanding of the brain substrates of PD-caused changes in attention, using hemodynamic imaging.

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The study is conducted in collaboration with Prof. Anat Mirelman and Dr. Inbal Maidan of the Brain & Neurological Disorders Research Institute, Tel Aviv Sourasky Medical Center and Sackler Faculty of Medicine of Tel-Aviv University.