Mark Gluck
Co-Director, Memory Disorders Project, Rutgers University - Newark

The Cognitive and Computational Neuroscience of Associative Learning and Categorization

Neurocomputational models  provide fundamental  insights for understanding how we learn new associations and organize our world into appropriate categories. I will review  the information-processing functions of two interacting brain systems: (1) Fronto-striatal circuits -- and their modulation by midbrain dopamine - which incrementally adjust choice behaviors during stimulus-response learning using environmental feedback about the consequences of our choices and (2) the hippocampus and other structures in the medial temporal lobes -- and their modulation by acetycholine and the medial septum --  which support learning in cortical regions  through the creation of new stimulus representations (and, hence, new similarity relationships)  that reflect important statistical regularities in the environment*.* The computational models  have been evaluated through a variety of empirical methodologies including human functional brain imaging, studies of patients with  localized brain damage due to injury or early-stage neurodegenerative diseases (including Parkinson's disease, MCI/Alzheimers, amnesia from stroke, and schizophrenia), behavioral genetic studies of naturally-occuring individual variability, as well as comparative lesion and genetic studies with rodents.

_*BIOSKETCH*_

Mark A. Gluck is a Professor of Neuroscience at Rutgers University - Newark, co-director of the Rutgers Memory Disorders Project, and publisher of the public health newsletter,/ Memory Loss and the Brain/. He works at the interface between neuroscience, psychology, and computer science studying the neural bases of learning and memory. His research spans numerous methodologies including neurcomputational modeling, clinical studies of brain-damaged patients, functional and structural brain imaging, behavioral genetics, and comparative studies of rodent and human learning.    He is the co-author of/ Gateway to Memory: An Introduction to Neural Network Models of the Hippocampus and Memory/ (MIT Press, 2001) as well as a new undergraduate textbook / Learning and Memory: From Brain to Behavior/ (Worth Publishers, 2008).  He has edited several other books including/ Neuroscience and Connectionist Theory/ (1990),/ Model Systems and the Neurobiology of Associative Learning: A Festschrift for Richard F. Thompson/ (2001)/,/ and/ Memory and Mind: A Festschrift for Gordan H. Bower/ (2007), as well as over 80 scientific journal articles and book chapters. His awards include the Distinguished Scientific Award for Early Career Contributions from the/ American Psychological Society/ and the Young Investigator Award for Cognitive and Neural Sciences from the/ Office of Naval Research./ In 1996, he was awarded a NSF Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers by President Bill Clinton.
For more information, see http://www.gluck.edu