Nadel special issue introduction

TY - JOUR

T1 - Nadel special issue introduction

AU - Barnes, Carol A.

AU - Ryan, Lee

AU - Peterson, Mary A.

N1 - Funding Information: Carol A. Barnes [email protected] Lee Ryan Mary A. Peterson Department of Psychology University of Arizona Tucson Arizona Evelyn F. McKnight Brain Institute Tucson Arizona Department of Neurology University of Arizona Tucson Arizona Department of Neuroscience University of Arizona Tucson Arizona Division of Neural Systems Memory and Aging, University of Arizona Tucson Arizona Cognitive Science Program University of Arizona Tucson Arizona This festschrift issue of Hippocampus recognizes Lynn Nadel's long career of outstanding theoretical and empirical contributions to the fields of psychology, neuroscience and cognitive science. It follows a symposium in his honor held at the University of Arizona, December 7–8, 2017, attended by many of the authors of the following articles. In this introductory article, we review Professor Nadel's training, the university positions he held, and briefly discuss some of his central contributions. Dr Nadel received his PhD in Physiological Psychology from McGill University in 1967 and conducted postdoctoral research at The Czechoslovak Academy of Science Institute of Physiology in Prague, funded by the National Institute of Mental Health. Following his post‐doctoral fellowship, he held positions at the Medical Research Council's Neural Mechanisms of Behavior Group at University College, London, as a Dozent in Neurophysiology at the University of Bergen, as a faculty member at Dalhousie University, as a Senior Research Associate in the Department of Psychiatry at the University of California San Diego, and as a research scientist at the University of California Irvine. He was appointed Professor of Psychology at the University of Arizona in 1985, where he served as Head of the Department of Psychology from 1989 until 2002. During his tenure as Department Head, he played a critical role in building the department into the first‐rate research and training unit that it is today. In recognition of his scientific achievements and of his service to the scientific and academic community, Lynn Nadel was appointed a University of Arizona Regents Professor in 2003. ). In fact, the separate role of the anterior/posterior (in primates) or dorsal/ventral (in rodents) components of the hippocampus has generated renewed interest in the current systems and cognitive neuroscience field. He has, for nearly 40 years, advanced our understanding of this brain system in ways that have had an enormous influence on both psychology and neuroscience. He may be best known for the book he wrote with John O'Keefe, in which they outlined a theory of hippocampal function. This book, ), is both a citation classic and a formidable theory, even today. This conceptual framework was pivotal in bringing the very disparate human and animal literatures together in predicting how a spatial mapping system would be critical for memory processes. Nadel went on to show with a number of his colleagues in studies with rats that the ability to learn and remember places develops at a different rate than other forms of learning and clearly is affected during the normal process of aging (Barnes, Nadel, & Honig, ; Nadel & Willner, ). In addition, the cognitive map theory was based on the fundamental idea that there must be several independent memory systems. In fact, Nadel and O'Keefe ( ) provided one of the first statements of the “multiple memory system” idea, which is now dogma in the field of psychology. Lynn Nadel's discoveries have illuminated the functions of the mammalian hippocampus, a brain system essential to spatial mapping and episodic memory. Beginning with his doctoral work, his science has been ground breaking and durable. His dissertation demonstrated a differentiation of function within the dorsal/ventral extent of the hippocampus of the rat (Nadel, The hippocampus as a cognitive map (O'Keefe & Nadel, ). The special role of the hippocampus in mediating context effects has now been generally accepted and subsumed into many theoretical accounts of hippocampal function. The germ of this idea, and its durability, resulted in predictions for an exciting experiment regarding the role of spatial context in memory reconsolidation which was conducted many years later (see below). The next important step in the evolution of the cognitive map idea was the hypothesis that part of the role of the hippocampus in spatial mapping involved the representation of “context” (Nadel & Willner, )—that puts a new twist on the “classical idea” of consolidation (the “old conceptualization” was initially suggested by Squire, Cohen, & Nadel, ). The new idea suggests that the hippocampus plays a permanent role in episodic memory, but only a temporary role in semantic memory. Again, just as with both the cognitive map and context ideas, there has been active debate in the field regarding the details of the theory. Nadel's ideas often turn from “controversial to consensus;” and emerging data suggest this may be the case for his ideas regarding memory consolidation. Some of the strongest data in favor of this concept has come from his own work on human memory including collaborations using neuroimaging methodologies to guide an understanding of what happens in the brain as memories age (Ryan et al., ). In collaboration with Gòmez and Bootzin, Nadel has shown that toddler's naps affect what is remembered about an artificial grammar to which they had been exposed some hours before (Gòmez, Bootzin, & Nadel, ). These data point to the importance of such sleep states in memory consolidation, even during development. Nadel also developed a theory of memory consolidation with Morris Moscovitch—Multiple Trace Theory (Nadel & Moscovitch, ). They showed that reactivation induces updating of a previously acquired memory, eliminating the possibility that this effect results from either retroactive interference or source memory confusion. In further work, Hupbach, Hardt, Gomez, and Nadel ( ) went on to show that the original training context is the critical component in the reactivation procedure that confers this vulnerability to a memory. This finding links back to Nadel's ideas about the hippocampus and context. This recent study highlights the importance of Nadel's past findings, and his ability to sustain the output of high impact science throughout his career. Nadel's ideas about context and consolidation recently led to a series of experiments involving the concept of “reconsolidation”. This idea was first generated from experiments involving animals: A stable memory can be made vulnerable when reactivated and must be reconsolidated in order to survive. Nadel and his colleagues developed the first paradigm for studying reconsolidation in human episodic memory (Hupbach, Gòmez, Nadel, & Hardt, ) propose that the hippocampus is more than a core long‐term memory structure. Instead, like other parts of the medial temporal lobe, it is part of an interactive posterior representational system spanning perceptual and memorial systems. In this view, perception and memory are seen as involving many, if not most, of the structures in the ventral representational stream, critically dependent on extensive feedforward and feedback processes. In other recent work, Nadel and Peterson ( In addition to contributing significantly to empirical and theoretical psychology, Nadel also thought about the underpinnings of genetic and clinical disorders. He suggested that stress has a selective effect on hippocampal function, and has implications for syndromes such as PTSD, phobias, panic disorder and agoraphobia. The original ideas linking stress and the hippocampus stem from a ) that has had a profound effect on the field. In other seminal work, he has suggested that at least some aspects of mental characteristics observed in Down syndrome result from improper development of the hippocampus. This idea, which he first suggested in 1986 (Nadel, ), has been accepted in the field, and, in fact, many animal models of Down syndrome target the hippocampus when devising ways to mimic the disorder (for more recent work, see Edgin et al., ). In recognition of his work on Down Syndrome, Lynn Nadel received the National Down Syndrome Society Award for Research (2005), the J. Mills Award for Exceptional Contribution to Research in Down Syndrome (2011), and the International Sisley‐Jerome Lejeune Award (2013). Psychological Review paper (Jacobs & Nadel, Professor Nadel's contributions to psychology have been recognized by other awards including the Grawemeyer Psychology Prize (2006; shared with John O'Keefe), the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Society of Experimental Psychologists (2016), the Gold Medal Award for Life Achievement in the Science of Psychology, from the American Psychological Foundation (2017), the William James Award from the Association for Psychological Societies (2019), and an Honorary Membership in the European Brain and Behavior Society (2017). This brief review is not exhaustive, but rather intended to give a flavor of Professor Nadel's outstandingly productive, innovative and sustained career as a scholar, scientist, collaborator, and teacher. Nadel's rigorous and creative thinking, combined with his good humor and generous spirit, have long inspired his students and colleagues. He continually encourages all of us to ask bold questions and to keep the big picture in mind. The papers in this volume report research examining questions motivated by Lynn Nadel's theoretical or empirical work, thereby continuing dialogues he started.

PY - 2020/8/1

Y1 - 2020/8/1

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85075430676&partnerID=8YFLogxK

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=85075430676&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.1002/hipo.23176

DO - 10.1002/hipo.23176

M3 - Comment/debate

C2 - 31763745

AN - SCOPUS:85075430676

SN - 1050-9631

VL - 30

SP - 773

EP - 775

JO - Hippocampus

JF - Hippocampus

IS - 8

ER -