Transfer of Learning Relates to Intrinsic Connectivity between Hippocampus, Ventromedial Prefrontal Cortex, and Large-Scale Networks

Abstract

An important aspect of adaptive learning is the ability to flexibly use past experiences to guide new decisions. When facing a new decision, some people automatically leverage previously learned associations, while others do not. This variability in transfer of learning across individuals has been demonstrated repeatedly and has important implications for understanding adaptive behavior, yet the source of these individual differences remains poorly understood. In particular, it is unknown why such variability in transfer emerges even among homogeneous groups of young healthy participants who do not vary on other learning-related measures. Here we hypothesized that individual differences in the transfer of learning could be related to relatively stable differences in intrinsic brain connectivity, which could constrain how individuals learn. To test this, we obtained a behavioral measure of memory-based transfer outside of the scanner and on a separate day acquired resting-state functional MRI images in 42 participants. We then analyzed connectivity across independent component analysis-derived brain networks during rest, and tested whether intrinsic connectivity in learning-related networks was associated with transfer. We found that individual differences in transfer were related to intrinsic connectivity between the hippocampus and the ventromedial prefrontal cortex, and between these regions and large-scale functional brain networks. Together, the findings demonstrate a novel role for intrinsic brain dynamics in flexible learning-guided behavior, both within a set of functionally specific regions known to be important for learning, as well as between these regions and the default and frontoparietal networks, which are thought to serve more general cognitive functions.

Neural signature of hierarchically structured expectations predicts clustering and transfer of rule sets in reinforcement learning

“…Related literature on acquired equivalence(27,28) shows that humans can link together stimuli that never appear together but which similarly predict subsequently appearing stimuli. Our finding of transfer within rule-sets extends this type of association to stimuli within hierarchical task-sets, and explores the nature of the clustering link.…”

Hippocampal–medial prefrontal circuit supports memory updating during learning and post-encoding rest

“…Prior work (Gerraty et al, 2014) has shown individual differences in resting-state functional connectivity relating to memory integration processes that support generalization. In apparent contrast to the present findings, that study found that intrinsic (i.e., not taske-voked) HPC-MPFC functional connectivity was negatively correlated with behavioral evidence for memory integration (Gerraty et al, 2014). However, HPC and MPFC also showed opposite connectivity-performance relationships with the default mode network (DMN), with low HPC-DMN and high MPFC-DMN connectivity being associated with superior integration.…”

Episodic Memory and Beyond: The Hippocampus and Neocortex in Transformation

“…Similar processes influence reward-based decisions in which a stimulus (A) acquires value through its secondary association (B) with monetary reward (C) (Wimmer & Shohamy 2012). The degree to which A comes to be associated with C is determined also by its interaction with schema-related processes in the vmPFC and its intrinsic resting-state connectivity with the HPC (Gerraty et al 2014). Similar processes may underlie performance on tests of second-order conditioning in rats (Gilboa et al 2014) and transitive inference in rats and humans who are presented with overlapping stimulus pairs in which one member of the pair is rewarded (e.g., A > B, B > C, C > D) and participants must infer how it is related to the other items (Preston & Eichenbaum 2013).…”