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Kathleen McDermott

URL: http://mednews.wustl.edu/sb/page/normal/414.html

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Gerry Everding
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(314) 935-5230

Associate Professor of Psychology and Radiology

Expertise: memory, memory retrieval, memory formation, fMRI, false memories, neuroimaging

Bio:
McDermott
McDermott is the director of the Memory and Cognition Laboratory. She investigates the mechanisms underlying memory formation and memory retrieval. Her research uses both behavioral (traditional psychological) and functional neuroimaging (specifically, fMRI) techniques. Ongoing projects include explorations of the behavioral and neural mechanisms underlying false memories, the neural substrates of memory retrieval, and implicit (or unintentional) memory. She obtained her Ph.D. in 1996 from Rice University where she studied implicit (or unintentional) memory and false memory (remembering events that did not happen). She then did a two-year postdoctoral fellowship in the Neuroimaging Laboratories at Washington University School of Medicine, where she learned to apply functional neuroimaging techniques to the study of human memory.

WUSTL Contact Information:
Work:(314) 935-8743
Alt:(314) 935-8892
E-mail:Kathleen_McDermott@wustl.edu
Address:Campus Box 1125
One Brookings Dr.
St. Louis, MO 63130

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News Stories & Tip Sheets:

Showing 1 Stories.
Remember the future

Imaging pinpoints brain regions that 'see the future' (http://mednews.wustl.edu/news/page/normal/8448.html)

Jan. 2, 2007 --
Comparing images of brain activity in response to the "self-remember," left, and "self-future" event cues, researchers found a surprisingly complete overlap among regions of the brain used.
Comparing images of brain activity in response to the "self-remember," left, and "self-future" event cues, researchers found a surprisingly complete overlap among regions of the brain used.
Using brain imaging, researchers from Washington University in St. Louis have identified several brain regions that are involved in the uniquely human ability to envision future events. The study, to be published in the journal PNAS, provides evidence that memory and future thought are highly interrelated and helps explain why future thought may be impossible without memories. Findings suggest that envisioning the future may be a critical prerequisite for many higher-level planning processes.



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Future recall
New Scientist (UK)

March 27, 2007 -- Cover story on the connection neuroscientists are finding between our memory of the past and our imagining of the future.
Evidence is accumulating of an intimate mental connection between recalling the past and imagining the future. Neuroscientists and psychologists have found that people who have lost their memories also lose their ability to imagine the future, and that the brain regions that are used for remembering are also used for imagining.
Article includes fMRI research done by WUSTL psychology professor Kathleen McDermott and colleague Karl Szpunar.


Abilities to visualize past, future overlap
USA Today, Scientific American, Washington Post and 35 others

Jan. 2, 2007 -- Our ability to daydream about our futures is closely related to our ability to recall our pasts and might even depend on it, according to a WUSTL study released Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
WUSTL psychology professor and co-author Kathleen McDermott comments.



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Related Links:
•McDermott's Web page (http://memory.wustl.edu/mcdermott.htm)
•Memory & Cognition lab (http://memory.wustl.edu/)
•McDermott's Neuroscience page (http://thalamus.wustl.edu/Neuroweb/mcdermott.htm)
•McDermott vitae (http://memory.wustl.edu/McDermott_CV_2003.pdf)

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