Hippocampal functional connectivity during episodic memory formation in humans: The roles of reward- and salience-related dopaminergic brain areas, novelty, and schema-related episodic distinctiveness

We will test the influence of stimulus novelty on the one hand and consistency of a stimulus with a pre-existing knowledge schema on the other on episodic memory formation in a factorial design using fMRI.

Hereby we will specifically focus on connectivity of the hippocampus with neocortical and with subcortical dopaminergic brain regions. Motivational dopaminergic regulation of the influences of these stimulus properties will be studied by introducing reward and punishment manipulations. To further investigate dopaminergic and serotonergic modulation we will recruit participants according to their COMT/DAT1 and 5-HTR2a genotypes respectively.

A10E Publications