John Aggleton
Based at the Behavioural Neuroscience Laboratory, School of Psychology
Research Keywords
Amnesia, recognition memory, spatial memory, episodic memory, fornix
Research Interests and Facilities
My research concerns the ways in which different brain regions work in concert to support various aspects of learning and memory. Most of my research is focussed on episodic memory and recognition memory, including animal models of these same forms of memory. My research is multi-level as I try to integrate animal and clinical research. In order to understand brain systems I also study the nature of the anatomical connections between key structures involved in memory. Of particular interest is the basis of diencephalic amnesia, and so uncovering how and why diencephalic brain structures interact with other regions in the temporal lobe and prefrontal cortex.
The School of Psychology has some of the most extensive, well-provided suites of laboratories for the behavioural analysis of normal and abnormal rodents in the UK. The laboratories are complemented by up-to-date surgical and histological suites. The creation of the Welsh Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience and the human brain imaging facilities at CUBRIC (part of the School of Psychology) both ensure that all animal work is placed in the context of parallel human research.
Available PhD Projects
- Investigating the impact of limbic pathology on retrosplenial cortex activity and function – a novel account of diencephalic amnesia
- Testing the importance of the subiculum for anterior thalamic function
- Understanding why the diencephalon is vital for recognition memory
- Spatial memory and the anterior thalamic nuclei
Publications
- Albasser, M.M., Poirier, G.L. Warburton, E.C., Aggleton, J.P. Hippocampal lesions halve immediate-early gene protein counts in retrosplenial cortex: distal dysfunctions in a spatial memory system. European Journal of Neuroscience, 26, 1254-1266, 2007.
- Aggleton, J.P., Sanderson, D.J., Pearce, J.M. Structural Learning and the hippocampus. Hippocampus, 17, 723-734, 2007.
- Aggleton, J.P. Brown, M.W. Interleaving brain systems for episodic and recognition memory. Trends in Cognitive Science, 10, 455-463, 2006.
- Aggleton, J.P., Dumont, J.R., Warburton, E.C. Unravelling the contributions of the diencephalon to recognition memory: A review. Learning and Memory, 18, 384-400, 2011.
- Vann, S.D., Aggleton, J.P., Maguire, E. A. What does the retrosplenial cortex do? Nature Reviews Neuroscience, 10, 792-802, 2009.