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Rats use strategies to make object choices in spontaneous object recognition tasks (2022)
Journal Article
Ross, T., & Easton, A. (2022). Rats use strategies to make object choices in spontaneous object recognition tasks. Scientific Reports, 12, Article 16973. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-022-21537-1

Rodent spontaneous object recognition (SOR) paradigms are widely used to study the mechanisms of complex memory in many laboratories. Due to the absence of explicit reinforcement in these tasks, there is an underlying assumption that object explorato... Read More about Rats use strategies to make object choices in spontaneous object recognition tasks.

A single brief stressful event time-dependently affects object recognition memory and promotes familiarity preference in marmoset monkeys (2022)
Journal Article
Costa, C. S., Oliveira, A. W., Easton, A., & Barros, M. (2022). A single brief stressful event time-dependently affects object recognition memory and promotes familiarity preference in marmoset monkeys. Behavioural Processes, 199, Article 104645. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.beproc.2022.104645

A stressful experience can enhance information storage and impair memory retrieval in the rodent novel object recognition (NOR) task. However, recent conflicting results underscore the need for further investigation. Nonhuman primates may provide a u... Read More about A single brief stressful event time-dependently affects object recognition memory and promotes familiarity preference in marmoset monkeys.

The spatial layout of doorways and environmental boundaries shape the content of event memories (2022)
Journal Article
Buckley, M. G., Myles, L. A., Easton, A., & McGregor, A. (2022). The spatial layout of doorways and environmental boundaries shape the content of event memories. Cognition, 225, Article 105091. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cognition.2022.105091

Physical boundaries in our environment have been observed to define separate events in episodic memory. To date, however, there is little evidence that the spatial properties of boundaries exert any control over event memories. To examine this possib... Read More about The spatial layout of doorways and environmental boundaries shape the content of event memories.

The Hippocampal Horizon: Constructing and Segmenting Experience for Episodic Memory (2021)
Journal Article
Ross, T., & Easton, A. (2022). The Hippocampal Horizon: Constructing and Segmenting Experience for Episodic Memory. Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews, 132, 181-196. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neubiorev.2021.11.038

How do we recollect specific events that have occurred during continuous ongoing experience? There is converging evidence from non-human animals that spatially modulated cellular activity of the hippocampal formation supports the construction of ongo... Read More about The Hippocampal Horizon: Constructing and Segmenting Experience for Episodic Memory.

Perirhinal cortex and the recognition of relative familiarity (2021)
Journal Article
Ameen-Ali, K. E., Sivakumaran, M. H., Eacott, M. J., O'Connor, A. R., Ainge, J. A., & Easton, A. (2021). Perirhinal cortex and the recognition of relative familiarity. Neurobiology of Learning and Memory, 182, Article 107439. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.nlm.2021.107439

Spontaneous object recognition (SOR) is a widely used task of recognition memory in rodents which relies on their propensity to explore novel (or relatively novel) objects. Network models typically define perirhinal cortex as a region required for re... Read More about Perirhinal cortex and the recognition of relative familiarity.

Acetylcholine and Spontaneous Recognition Memory in Rodents and Primates (2020)
Book Chapter
Easton, A., Barros, M., & Lever, C. (2020). Acetylcholine and Spontaneous Recognition Memory in Rodents and Primates. In M. Shoaib, & T. Wallace (Eds.), Behavioral pharmacology of the cholinergic system (29-45). Springer Verlag. https://doi.org/10.1007/7854_2020_132

Whilst acetylcholine has long been linked to memory, there have been significant questions about its specific role. In particular, the effects of cholinergic manipulations in primates and rodents has often been at odds. Here, we review the work in pr... Read More about Acetylcholine and Spontaneous Recognition Memory in Rodents and Primates.

Impaired episodic simulation in a patient with visual memory deficit amnesia (2020)
Journal Article
Easton, A., Cockcroft, J. P., Ameen-Ali, K. E., & Eacott, M. J. (2020). Impaired episodic simulation in a patient with visual memory deficit amnesia. Brain and Neuroscience Advances, 4, https://doi.org/10.1177/2398212820954384

For the first time, we assess episodic simulation in a patient with visual memory deficit amnesia, following damage to visual association cortices. Compared to control participants, the patient with visual memory deficit amnesia shows severely restri... Read More about Impaired episodic simulation in a patient with visual memory deficit amnesia.

Changes in presynaptic calcium signalling accompany age-related deficits in hippocampal LTP and cognitive impairment (2019)
Journal Article
Pereda, D., Al-Osta, I., Okorocha, A., Easton, A., & Hartell, N. (2019). Changes in presynaptic calcium signalling accompany age-related deficits in hippocampal LTP and cognitive impairment. Aging Cell, 18(5), Article e13008. https://doi.org/10.1111/acel.13008

The loss of cognitive function accompanying healthy aging is not associated with extensive or characteristic patterns of cell death, suggesting it is caused by more subtle changes in synaptic properties. In the hippocampal CA1 region, long‐term poten... Read More about Changes in presynaptic calcium signalling accompany age-related deficits in hippocampal LTP and cognitive impairment.

The NMDA receptor antagonist MK-801 fails to impair long-term recognition memory in mice when the state-dependency of memory is controlled (2019)
Journal Article
Chan, M., Austen, J. M., Eacott, M. J., Easton, A., & Sanderson, D. J. (2019). The NMDA receptor antagonist MK-801 fails to impair long-term recognition memory in mice when the state-dependency of memory is controlled. Neurobiology of Learning and Memory, 161, 57-62. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.nlm.2019.03.006

NMDA receptor-dependent synaptic plasticity has been proposed to be important for encoding of memories. Consistent with this hypothesis, the non-competitive NMDA receptor antagonist, MK-801, has been found to impair performance on tests of memory. In... Read More about The NMDA receptor antagonist MK-801 fails to impair long-term recognition memory in mice when the state-dependency of memory is controlled.

Walking through doorways differentially affects recall and familiarity (2018)
Journal Article
Seel, S., Easton, A., McGregor, A., Buckley, M., & Eacott, M. (2019). Walking through doorways differentially affects recall and familiarity. British Journal of Psychology, 110(1), 173-184. https://doi.org/10.1111/bjop.12343

Previous research has reported that walking through a doorway to a new location makes memory for objects and events experienced in the previous location less accurate. This effect, termed the location updating effect, has been used to suggest that lo... Read More about Walking through doorways differentially affects recall and familiarity.

Continual trials spontaneous recognition tasks in mice: reducing animal numbers and improving our understanding of the mechanisms underlying memory (2018)
Journal Article
Chan, M., Eacott, M. J., Sanderson, D. J., Wang, J., Sun, M., & Easton, A. (2018). Continual trials spontaneous recognition tasks in mice: reducing animal numbers and improving our understanding of the mechanisms underlying memory. Frontiers in Behavioral Neuroscience, 12, Article 214. https://doi.org/10.3389/fnbeh.2018.00214

Spontaneous recognition tasks are widely used as a laboratory measure of memory in animals but give rise to high levels of behavioural noise leading to a lack of reliability. Previous work has shown that a modification of the procedure to allow conti... Read More about Continual trials spontaneous recognition tasks in mice: reducing animal numbers and improving our understanding of the mechanisms underlying memory.

Cholinergic input to the hippocampus is not required for a model of episodic memory in the rat, even with multiple consecutive events (2017)
Journal Article
Seel, S., Eacott, M., Langston, R., & Easton, A. (2018). Cholinergic input to the hippocampus is not required for a model of episodic memory in the rat, even with multiple consecutive events. Behavioural Brain Research, 354, 48-54. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bbr.2017.06.001

Previous work has shown that depletion of the cholinergic input to the hippocampus produces no impairment in an episodic (what-where-which) memory task in rats. However, in contrast a where-which task was significantly impaired. Models of acetylcholi... Read More about Cholinergic input to the hippocampus is not required for a model of episodic memory in the rat, even with multiple consecutive events.

Incidental context information increases recollection (2017)
Journal Article
Ameen-Ali, K., Norman, L., Eacott, M., & Easton, A. (2017). Incidental context information increases recollection. Learning & Memory, 24(3), 136-139. https://doi.org/10.1101/lm.042622.116

The current study describes a receiver-operating characteristic (ROC) task for human participants based on the spontaneous recognition memory paradigms typically used with rodents. Recollection was significantly higher when an object was in the same... Read More about Incidental context information increases recollection.

Moving beyond standard procedures to assess spontaneous recognition memory (2015)
Journal Article
Ameen-Ali, K., Easton, A., & Eacott, M. (2015). Moving beyond standard procedures to assess spontaneous recognition memory. Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews, 53, 37-51. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neubiorev.2015.03.013

This review will consider how spontaneous tasks have been applied alongside neuroscientific techniques to test complex forms of recognition memory for objects and their environmental features, e.g. the spatial location of an object or the context in... Read More about Moving beyond standard procedures to assess spontaneous recognition memory.

Putting Memory in Context: Dissociating memories by distinguishing the nature of context (2015)
Journal Article
Robertson, B., Eacott, M., & Easton, A. (2015). Putting Memory in Context: Dissociating memories by distinguishing the nature of context. Behavioural Brain Research, 285, 99-104. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bbr.2014.10.045

In recent years, spontaneous recognition tasks have become commonplace methods of assessing memory in animals. Adaptations of these tasks allow us to look at the role of objects, contexts and spatial locations in memory. Recent findings have highligh... Read More about Putting Memory in Context: Dissociating memories by distinguishing the nature of context.

Episodic-Like Memory for What-Where-Which Occasion is Selectively Impaired in the 3xTgAD Mouse Model of Alzheimer’s Disease (2013)
Journal Article
Davis, K., Easton, A., Eacott, M., & Gigg, J. (2013). Episodic-Like Memory for What-Where-Which Occasion is Selectively Impaired in the 3xTgAD Mouse Model of Alzheimer’s Disease. Journal of Alzheimer's Disease, 33(3), 681-698. https://doi.org/10.3233/jad-2012-121543

Episodic memory loss is a defining feature of early-stage Alzheimer’s disease (AD). A test of episodic-like memory for the rat, the What-Where-Which occasion task (WWWhich), requires the association of object, location, and contextual information to... Read More about Episodic-Like Memory for What-Where-Which Occasion is Selectively Impaired in the 3xTgAD Mouse Model of Alzheimer’s Disease.