Cecilia ForcatoInstituto Tecnológico de Buenos Aires | ITBA · Life Sciences
Cecilia Forcato
PhD
About
48
Publications
10,508
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1,090
Citations
Citations since 2017
Introduction
My main objective is to understand how true and false memories are formed and how they can be modified during sleep and wakefulness. My research ranges from Basic Science studying how sleep participates in memory enhancement, integration of new information in pre-existing memory networks, false memory formation, lucid dreaming and out of the body experiences (OBE) to Applied Science studying how to improve memories during sleep in Normal Older Adults and with Mild Cognitive Impairment.
Additional affiliations
January 2020 - present
July 2017 - December 2019
ENYS (Neurosciences and Complex Systems Unit (ENYS), CONICET – UNAJ – Hosp El Cruce
Position
- Researcher
October 2014 - July 2017
Institute of Physiology, Molecular Biology and Neurosciences
Position
- Researcher
Education
August 2006 - March 2011
March 1999 - July 2005
Publications
Publications (48)
In this study, we examine the structural properties of dream reports that include non-lucid, lucid dreams (LDs) and out-of-body experiences (OBEs). We collected a set of 916 dream reports (728 non-lucid dreams, 122 LDs, 68 OBEs) obtained from 60 participants that kept a dream journal for two months. The collected reports were transformed into direc...
Lucid dreams (LDs) and out-of-body experiences (OBEs) are phenomena characterized by the return of higher cognitive abilities during sleep, including reflective self-awareness and abstract thought. Given the similarities in reflective self-awareness between LDs and OBEs, some authors consider them variations of the same phenomenon. This study aimed...
Sleep paralysis is characterized by the incapacity to perform voluntary movements
during sleep/wake transitions, and could bring great discomfort. During sleep paralysis, out-of-body experiences can occur. Out-of-body experiences refers to the sensation of being outside of the physical body and perceiving the world from this outside
perspective; ho...
The dissemination of fake news causes global concern. Evidence indicates that fake news can generate memory distortions and influence people's behavior. Within the framework of the great debates, the tendency to generate false memories from fake news seems to be modulated by the ideological alignment. This effect has been observed mainly around iss...
After encoding, memories go through a labile state followed by a stabilization process known as consolidation. Once consolidated they can enter a new labile state after the presentation of a reminder of the original memory, followed by a period of re-stabilization (reconsolidation). During these periods of lability the memory traces can be modified...
Sleep is a key factor in memory consolidation. During sleep, information is reactivated, transferred, and redistributed to neocortical areas, thus favoring memory consolidation and integration. Although these reactivations occur spontaneously, they can also be induced using external cues, such as sound or odor cues, linked to the acquired informati...
Sleep paralysis (SP) is characterized by the incapacity to perform voluntary movements during sleep/wake transitions and could bring great discomfort. During SP, Out-of-Body Experiences (OBEs) can occur however, they are pleasant in comparison with other SP hallucinations. Moreover, there is evidence suggesting that OBEs can be induced using behavi...
Sleep is a key factor in memory consolidation. During sleep, information is reactivated, transferred, and redistributed to neocortical areas, thus favoring memory consolidation and integration. While they occur spontaneously, these reactivations can also be induced using external cues linked to the acquired information, such as sound or odor cues....
Memory formation is modulated by anxiety, depression and sleep quality, and it is altered as a consequence of normal aging. During the COVID-19 pandemic, anxiety and depression values increased and sleep quality decreased, being young adults the more affected. It has been proposed that older adults had better coping mechanisms that could have dimin...
The threatening context of the COVID-19 pandemic provided a unique setting to study the effects of negative psychological symptoms on memory processes. Episodic memory is an essential function of the human being related to the ability to store and remember experiences and anticipate possible events in the future. Studying this function in this cont...
In the present study we explored the postlearning changes in a novel word’s definition using a cue-induced memory reactivation. Native speakers of Spanish (N = 373) learned low-frequency words with their corresponding definitions. The following day, reactivated groups were exposed to a reminder and provided a subjective assessment of reactivation f...
The COVID-19 pandemic has caused major disruptions in people’s lives around the globe. Sleep habits and emotional balance have been disturbed in a way that could be comparable to the havoc caused by a deep personal crisis or a traumatic experience. This unfortunate situation provides a unique context in which to study the impact of these imbalances...
According to the active system consolidation theory, memory consolidation during sleep relies on the reactivation of newly encoded memory representations. This reactivation is orchestrated by the interplay of sleep slow oscillations, spindles, and theta, which are in turn modulated by certain neurotransmitters like GABA to enable long-lasting plast...
Aversive memories are long-lasting and prone to burden our emotional wellbeing and mental health. Yet, how to remedy the maladaptive effects of aversive memories remains elusive. Using memory reactivation and emotional updating manipulations, we investigated how positive and neutral emotion may update aversive memories for reconsolidation in humans...
Dossier memoria y emoción
Trakas - Memoria y emoción: introducción al dossier
Ramirez, Ruetti et al. - Memoria emocional en niñas y niños de diferentes condiciones socio-ambientales
Saive - Reír para recordar: mejora de la memoria en relación con el humor
Diaz Abrahan, Justel et al. - Memoria emocional. Una revisión sistemática de la capacidad...
The threatening context of the COVID-19 pandemic provided a unique setting to study the effects of negative psychological symptoms on memory processes. Episodic memory is an essential function of the human being related to the ability to store and remember experiences and anticipate possible events in the future. Studying this function in this cont...
After encoding, memories go through a labile state followed by a stabilization process known as consolidation. Once consolidated they can enter a new labile state after the presentation of a reminder of the original memory, followed by a period of re-stabilization (reconsolidation). During these periods of lability the memory traces can be modified...
Aversive memories are long-lasting and prone to have adverse effects on our emotional wellbeing and mental health. Yet, how to remedy the maladaptive effects of aversive memories remains elusive. Using memory reactivation and emotional updating manipulations, we investigated how positive and neutral emotion updates aversive memories for reconsolida...
In the present study we explored the post-learning changes in a novel word's definition using a cue-induced memory reactivation. Native speakers of Spanish (N=373) learned low-frequency words with their corresponding definitions. The following day, reactivated groups were exposed to a reminder and provided a subjective assessment of reactivation fo...
Reactivation by reminder cues labilizes memories during wakefulness, requiring reconsoli-dation to persist. In contrast, during sleep, cued reactivation seems to directly stabilize memories. In reconsolidation, incomplete reminders are more effective in reactivating memories than complete reminders by inducing a mismatch, i.e. a discrepancy between...
Las memorias consolidadas pueden atravesar por un período de labilidad frente a la presentación de recordatorios (claves ligadas al aprendizaje inicial), seguido de un proceso de re-estabilización conocido como reconsolidación. Por otro lado, el sueño tiene un rol activo en la formación y modificación de memorias, así como en la reducción del tono...
Sleep is a natural and reversible state of rest. In mammals it is characterized by the cyclical occurrence of Rapid Eye Movement (REM) and non-REM sleep. The latter is characterized by the presence of sleep spindles, K-Complexes (KCs), slow cortical waves and fast hippocampal waves. During sleep there is a spontaneous reactivation of recently acqui...
Normal aging involves changes in the ability to acquire, consolidate and recall new information. It has been recently proposed that the reconsolidation process is also affected in older adults. Reconsolidation is triggered after reminder presentation, allowing memories to be modified: they can be impaired, strengthened or changed in their content....
Consolidated memories can return to a labile state if they are reactivated by unpredictable reminders. To persist, active memories must be re-stabilized through a process known as reconsolidation. Although there is consistent behavioral evidence about this process in humans, the retrieval process of reconsolidated memories remains poorly understood...
A correction to this article has been published and is linked from the HTML and PDF versions of this paper. The error has not been fixed in the paper.
Consolidated memories can return to a labile state upon presentation of a reminder, followed by a period of re-stabilization known as reconsolidation. This period can take several hours, and if an amnesic agent (e.g. new learning) is administered inside the time window of reconsolidation (when the memory is still labile) the memory is impaired, whe...
Consolidated memories can persist from a single day to years, and persistence is improved by retraining or retrieval-mediated plasticity. One retrieval-based way to strengthen memory is the reconsolidation process. Strengthening occurs simply by the presentation of specific cues associated with the original learning. This enhancement function has a...
Learning novel words is a challenging process for our memory systems; we must be able to recall new word forms and meanings in order to communicate. However, the dynamics of the word memory formation is still unclear. Here, we addressed the temporal profile of two key cognitive markers of memory consolidation in the domain of word learning: i) the...
Consolidated memory can be again destabilized by the presentation of a memory cue (reminder) of the previously acquired information. During this process of labilization/restabilization memory traces can be either impaired, strengthened or updated in content. Here, we study if a consolidated memory can be updated by linking one original cue to two d...
Following the presentation of a reminder, consolidated memories become reactivated followed by a process of re-stabilization, which is referred to as reconsolidation. The most common behavioral tool used to reveal this process is interference produced by new learning shortly after memory reactivation. Memory interference is defined as a decrease in...
Consolidated memories return to a labile state after the presentation of cues (reminders) associated with acquisition, followed by a period of stabilization (reconsolidation). However not all cues are equally effective in initiating the process, unpredictable cues triggered it, predictable cues do not. We hypothesize that the different effects obse...
Like Lane et al., we believe that change in psychotherapy comes about by updating dysfunctional memories with new adaptive experiences. We suggest that sleep is essential to (re-)consolidate such corrective experiences. Sleep is well-known to strengthen and integrate new memories into pre-existing networks. Targeted sleep interventions might be pro...
The reconsolidation hypothesis posits that the presentation of a specific cue, previously associated with a life event, makes the stored memory pass from a stable to a reactivated state. In this state, memory is again labile and susceptible to different agents, which may either damage or improve the original memory. Such susceptibility decreases ov...
Several reports have shown that after specific reminders are presented, consolidated memories pass from a stable state to one in which the memory is reactivated. This reactivation implies that memories are labile and susceptible to amnesic agents. This susceptibility decreases over time and leads to a re-stabilization phase usually known as reconso...
The idea that memories are immutable after consolidation has been challenged. Several reports have shown that after the presentation of a specific reminder, reactivated old memories become labile and again susceptible to amnesic agents. Such vulnerability diminishes with the progress of time and implies a re-stabilization phase, usually referred to...
Pavlovian trace conditioning depends on the temporal gap between the conditioned and unconditioned stimuli. It requires, in mammals, functional medial temporal lobe structures and, in humans, explicit knowledge of the temporal contingency. It is therefore considered to be a plausible objective test to assess awareness without relying on explicit re...
A consolidated memory recalled by a reminder enters a vulnerability phase (labilization), followed by a process of stabilization (reconsolidation). Several authors have suggested that the labilization of the consolidated memory makes the incorporation of new information possible. Here, we demonstrate updating in the framework of memory declarative...
Memory reconsolidation is defined as a process in which the retrieval of a previously consolidated memory returns to a labile state which is then subject to stabilization. The reminder is the event that begins with the presentation of the learned cue and triggers the labilization-reconsolidation process. Since the early formulation of the hypothesi...
The reconsolidation hypothesis states that a consolidated memory could again become unstable and susceptible to facilitation or impairment for a discrete period of time after a reminder presentation. The phenomenon has been demonstrated in very diverse species and types of memory, including the human procedural memory of a motor skill task but not...
Although investigations addressing cognitive recovery from the vegetative state have been reported, to date there have been no detailed studies of these patients combining both neuropsychology and functional imaging to monitor and record the recovery of consciousness. This paper describes the recovery of a specific vegetative state (VS) case. The p...
Projects
Projects (2)
In order to evaluate the relation between KC and memory processes, our main goal is to create a method with Machine Learning techniques to characterize and identify KCs.
We are performing an online experiment/game about football (soccer) World Cup. Your participation would be very helpful. We send you the link, it can be done in any device (computer, cellphone, tablet) and it last 20 min. It is important not to check the answers elsewhere. Anyone can participate. It doesn't matter your age or football (soccer) knowledge.
Please click here: https://b.socrative.com/login/student/
the room name is WORLDCUP
Thank you!
