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| PERSONAL
PROFILE |
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Psychology,
University of Pennsylvania, 1972
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Psychology,
University of Pennsylvania, 1967
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Honours
Psychology, McGill University, 1966
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I
was born in Bucharest, Roumania, but lived there only for the first
few years of my life. Between the ages of four and seven,  I lived in Israel then moved to Montreal, Canada.
I became interested in memory research while attending McGill where
I did my undergraduate thesis with Peter Milner. He and the rest
of the superb faculty and graduate students inspired me to seek
a career in neuropsychology. I continued my education at the University
of Pennsylvania whose faculty and students were as inspiring as
those at McGill.-I
I
have been working at the University of Toronto since 1971. In addition
to being a professor at UofT, I am also a Senior Scientist at the
Rotman Research Institute of Baycrest Centre for Geriatric Care.
This academic centre, located in North York, is affiliated with
the University of Toronto.
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| RESEARCH
PROGRAM |
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The objectives
of my current research program are to gain an understanding of the
processes and brain mechanisms mediating memory, attention and recognition
of faces and objects. The research is guided by a neuropsychological
model of memory that has four components: 1) the posterior
neocortex that mediates performance on tests of memory without
awareness; 2) the medial temporal
lobes that automatically store information that is consciously
apprehended at encoding and obligatorily recovers information on
tests of conscious recollection that are cue-driven; 3) the frontal lobes that work with memories delivered
to and by the medial temporal lobes and posterior neocortex, and
recovered from them by supporting strategic processes that are needed
at encoding and retrieval;4) the parietal cortex that directs attention
to objects perceived in the external world and to internal processes
necessary for memory encoding and retrieval.
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| Research
on recognition of faces and objects will seek to determine whether
internal and external features are processed differently and, if so,
how these processes interact, how each contributes to recognition
of upright and inverted faces, how they are related to processes that
mediate perception of other complex visual stimuli such as words and
objects, and what brain regions are involved. |
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| Our
research is done on young and old healthy people and on clinical populations
with brain lesions or degeneration such as patients with Alzheimer's
or Parkinson's Disease. We use behavioural, structural and functional
neuroimaging techniques to address our questions. |
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| Note: For a
full listing of publications, please visit the Rotman
Research Institute website [here]
and travel to the "publications" heading (the page accepts
direct requests for publication reprints) OR visit PUBMED
listings by clicking [here]. |
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| MOST
SIGNIFICANT CONTRIBUTIONS TO RESEARCH AND/OR PRACTICAL APPLICATIONS
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Moscovitch, M., Winocur, G., & Behrmann (1997). What makes
face-recognition special? Evidence from a person with visual object
agnosia and dyslexia but normal face-recogniton. Journal of Cognitive
Neuroscience, 9, 555-604. |
| Our
earlier studies on imagery challenged, and led to modifications, in
the theory that imagery and perception share a common neural substrate.
The paper focused on CK's intact face-recognition which allowed us
to determine the stimulus properties of faces that drive the face-recognition
system. This paper was featured in Science, as a news release by the
Society for Neuroscience, and is cited often as the best evidence
that faces are processed by dedicated neural mechanisms. (see the
enclosed paper by Anaki and Moscovitch, Visual
Cognition (2007) which is a continuation of
this work with a focus on temporal integration.) 200 citations.
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Moscovitch, M. (1992). Memory and working with memory: A component
process model based on modules and central systems. Journal of Cognitive
Neuroscience, 4, 257-267. |
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paper describes a model which attributes dissociable memory functions
to posterior neocortex, medial temporal lobes (MTL), prefrontal cortex
(PFC) and basal ganglia. According to the model, performance on implicit
and explicit memory tests is determined by the neural components that
are recruited, the interaction among them, and the information they
represent, and operations they support. It continues to provide a
framework for my work, and its basic formulations have become the
standard ones in the field. (see the enclosed paper by Ciaramelli,
Moscovitch & Grady, Neuropsychologia, (2008) and Cabeza,
Ciaramelli, Olson and Moscovitch, Nature Reviews Neuroscience
,(2009) on the addition of parietal attention systems to the
model). 264 citations. |
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| Nadel,
L. & Moscovitch, M. (1997). Memory consolidation, retrograde amnesia
and the hippocampal complex. Current Opinion in Neurobiology, 7,
217-227. |
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We proposed a multiple-trace theory (MTT) of memory as an alternative
to the traditional consolidation theory which posits that with time
memories can be maintained independently of the hippocampus. According
to MTT the hippocampal complex is an integral part of the memory trace
for an experienced event for as long as it exists. The hippocampal
complex is needed to recover detailed memories of autobiographical
episodes, including remote spatial memories. The model was tested
and confirmed in amnesic people and neuroimaging studies in normal
people in our laboratory and that of others . The MTT now rivals the
traditional model and is cited in almost all studies on remote memory
and consolidation. (See the enclosed paper by Moscovitch et al,
2005, and Moscovitch et al, 2005, J. Anatomy, and 2006, Curr.
Op. Neurob.which are updates of this model). 361 citations.
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| Moscovitch,
M. (1994). Cognitive resources and dual-task interference effects
at retrieval in normal people: The role of the frontal lobes and medial
temporal cortex.Neuropsychology, 8, 524-534. |
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is the first in a series of papers that uses Divided Attention to
explore the distinction between obligatory and strategic retrieval
processes mediated, respectively, by the MTL and PFC. (For an update,
see, below, all the papers by Fernandes et al, 2000-2007, and
the review by Moscovitch et al, 2001.) 109 Citations. |
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| Moscovitch,
M., Rosenbaum, R.S., Gilboa, A., Addis, D.R., Westmacott, R., Grady,
C., McAndrews, M.P., Levine, B., Black, S., Winocur, G., & Nadel,
L. (2005). Functional neuroanatomy of remote episodic, semantic and
spatial memory: A unified account based on multiple trace theory.
Journal of Anatomy, 207, 35-66. |
| This
is a comprehensive review of the remote memory literature that includes
behavioural and neuroimaging studies, involving brain-damaged populations
as well normal older adults. The review compares the ability of traditional
consolidation theory and the more recent memory trace theory to explain
the role of the hippocampus in remote memory, and concludes that the
evidence favours the latter. |
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| Rosenbaum,
R.S., Priselac, S., Köhler, S., Black, S.E., Gao, F., Nadel, L., &
Moscovitch, M. (2000). Remote memory in an amnesic person with extensive
bilateral hippocampal lesions. Nature Neuroscience, 3, 1044-1048.
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examined remote spatial memory in K.C., an amnesic person with extensive
bilateral lesions of the hippocampal complex. K.C. performed normally
on spatial tests that assessed his knowledge of his neighbourhood
and of the world, including natural navigation in his neighbourhood,
sketch mapping, vector mapping, and blocked-route problem-solving.
He was severely impaired in recognizing and identifying all but the
major neighbourhood landmarks. The results suggest that the hippocampus
does not appear to be crucial for the maintenance and retrieval of
remotely-formed spatial representations that contain information about
major landmarks, routes, distance and direction, but may be necessary
for preserving a rich cognitive map with topographical details and
environmental features. |
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