What does the Retrosplenial Cortex Do?

Hwang, Eunkyu

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Year:: 2020
Contributor:: Hwang, Eunkyu (creator); Burwell, Rebecca (Advisor); Bath, Kevin (Reader); Desrochers, Theresa (Reader); Brown University. Department of Cognitive, Linguistic, and Psychological Sciences (sponsor)
Genre:: theses
Subject:: behavioral neuroscience; Electrophysiology; retrosplenial cortex
Extent:: xiii, 161 p.

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Abstract:: The function of the retrosplenial cortex (RSC) in human cognition is a topic of rising interest in cognitive and behavioral neuroscience. So far, however, there is a stunning lack of convergence on what the region does. The RSC is implicated in a variety of cognitive processes, including navigation, spatial memory, processing of contextual information, sensory integration, systems consolidation, and cross-modal information processing, and cognitive control. One possibility is that a core function of the RSC supports all of these processes. The motivation for this thesis was to develop and test a theory of a core function of the RSC that could account for all the available, reliable evidence. Based on my review of the literature on the RSC, I originally hypothesized that the RSC supports this wide variety of cognitive processes by playing a role in the allocation of attentional resources to behaviorally relevant aspects of tasks. The studies presented in this thesis were designed to test this hypothesis. In the first study, I recorded single unit and local field potential activity in the RSC during performance of a visuospatial attention task (VSA task). This task allows assessment of multiple attentional systems: sustained attention, divided attention, and visuospatial attention. In the second study, I compared the neuronal correlates of the RSC, with those of regions that are strongly and reciprocally connected with the RSC and are implicated in visuospatial attention. These regions included dorsal and caudal posterior parietal cortex (PPC) and the postrhinal cortex (POR). In the first study, I found evidence that the RSC has a role in attention, integration of spatial information, and possibly cognitive control. In the second study, I showed that the neuronal correlates of attention in the RSC differ from those in the POR and PPC. This series of studies advances our basic understanding of the function of the RSC and informs how the RSC, PPC, the POR may work together under conditions that require visuospatial attention. These studies also provide insight into how the RSC might contribute to the large variety of functions in which it is linked.
Notes:: Thesis (Ph. D.)--Brown University, 2020

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Hwang, Eunkyu, "What does the Retrosplenial Cortex Do?" (2020). Cognitive, Linguistic, and Psychological Sciences Theses and Dissertations. Brown Digital Repository. Brown University Library. https://repository.library.brown.edu/studio/item/bdr:9t89prpt/

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Cognitive, Linguistic, and Psychological Sciences Theses and Dissertations

Theses and Dissertations for the Cognitive, Linguistic, and Psychological Sciences department.
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