title: 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.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, Kavli Institute for Brain Science, Columbia University New York, New York 10027.
authors.forename: Raphael T
authors.identifier: http://orcid.org/0000-0001-9782-1005
authors.initials: RT
authors.lastname: Gerraty
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, Kavli Institute for Brain Science, Columbia University New York, New York 10027.
authors.forename: Juliet Y
authors.initials: JY
authors.lastname: Davidow
authors.affiliation: Department of Systems Neuroscience, University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf, 20246 Hamburg, Germany, and.
authors.forename: G Elliott
authors.identifier: http://orcid.org/0000-0002-2227-119X
authors.initials: GE
authors.lastname: Wimmer
authors.affiliation: Department of Physiology and Biophysics, The Ruth and Bruce Rappaport Faculty of Medicine Technion, Israel Institute of Technology, Haifa 31096, Israel.
authors.forename: Itamar
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Kahn
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, Kavli Institute for Brain Science, Columbia University New York, New York 10027, ds2619@columbia.edu.
authors.forename: Daphna
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Shohamy
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D001245:Association Learning; D001931:Brain Mapping; D003657:Decision Making; D005260:Female; D005717:Games, Experimental; D006624:Hippocampus / Q000098:blood supply / Q000502:physiology*; D006801:Humans; D007091:Image Processing, Computer-Assisted; D007206:Individuality; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging; D008297:Male; D009434:Neural Pathways / Q000098:blood supply / Q000502:physiology*; D010100:Oxygen / Q000097:blood; D017397:Prefrontal Cortex / Q000098:blood supply / Q000502:physiology*; D012201:Reward; D014163:Transfer, Psychology / Q000502:physiology*; D055815:Young Adult
chemical_list: D010100:Oxygen
keywords: generalization; intrinsic connectivity; learning; networks; rest