Skip to content
Project Directory
  • Français
Donate Now
  • Français
  • About
    • What We Do
    • Leadership
    • Team
    • Publications
    • Careers
  • Diseases/Disorders
    • One Brain
    • ALS
    • Alzheimer’s
    • Autism
    • Brain Cancer
    • Brain Injury
    • Epilepsy
    • Mental Illness
    • Multiple Sclerosis
    • Parkinson’s
    • Stroke
    • Other
  • Research
    • Programs
    • Funding Opportunities
    • Program Partners
    • Announcements
  • Impact
  • Ways To Give
    • Giving to Research
    • How You Can Help
    • Events

Funded Grants

Back to results

Relating hippocampal pathways to human learning

Project Overview

The human experience is marked by constant learning. Moments of contention, when new experiences conflict with prior knowledge, often lead to the most meaningful learning. How do we successfully navigate these moments and gain new knowledge? In the current project, we aim to answer this question by characterizing (1) how individuals differ in their ability to learn in different situations and (2) the specific brain structures and pathways that guide new learning. We focus on the hippocampus, a brain region known to support memory and learning by connecting elements of experience across time and space. Here, we test the prediction that differences in individuals’ learning abilities arise due to differences of information pathways within the hippocampus. In other words, we predict that the flow of information through the hippocampus dictates how and what people learn from new experiences. We combine behavioural, brain imaging, and neural network modelling methods to investigate the structure of the hippocampus and how it supports the formation of rich knowledge in adults. Our multifaceted approach will provide novel insight into how the brain’s memory system supports learning and inform our understanding of disorders that impact learning (e.g., autism, schizophrenia).

Principal Investigator

Michael Mack , University of Toronto

Partners and Donors

The Azrieli Foundation

Project Ongoing

Relating hippocampal pathways to human learning

  • Program Type

    Capacity building grants

  • Area of research

    Central Nervous System

  • Disease Area

    Autism

  • Competition

    Future Leaders in Canadian Brain Research

  • Province

    Ontario

  • Start Date

    2020

  • Total Grant Amount

    $100,000

Contact Us

1200 McGill College Avenue
Suite 1600, Montreal, Quebec
H3B 4G7

+1 (514) 989-2989 info@braincanada.ca

Playing with Marbles Podcast

Join us and take a journey to the real last great frontier – the brain.

Listen

Subscribe to Brain News

Receive our monthly electronic newsletter with updates on funded projects, upcoming events and breakthroughs in brain research.

Sign Up

Territorial acknowledgement

The offices of Brain Canada Foundation are located on the traditional, ancestral territory of the Kanien'kehá:ka Peoples, a place which has long served as a site of meeting and exchange amongst nations. We honour and pay respect to elders past, present and emerging, and dedicate ourselves to moving forward in the spirit of partnership, collaboration, and reconciliation. In our work, we focus our efforts on the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s Calls to Action, particularly those that pertain to improving health for Indigenous Peoples and that focus on advancing our own learning on Indigenous issues.

© 2023 Brain Canada Foundation

Registration number: 89105 2094 RR0001

  • Terms and Conditions
  • Privacy Policy

Design by Field Trip & Co