NÉMETH LAB
MEMO - a Brain, Memory and Language Team
New publications
Nagy, C. A., Hann, F., Brezóczki, B., Farkas, K., Vékony, T., Pesthy, O., & Németh, D. (2025). Intact ultrafast memory consolidation in adults with autism and neurotypicals with autism traits. Brain Research, 1847.
The processes of learning and memory consolidation are closely interlinked. Therefore, to uncover statistical learning in autism spectrum disorder (ASD), an in-depth examination of memory consolidation is essential. Studies of the last five years have revealed that learning can take place not only during practice but also during micro rest (<1 min) between practice blocks, termed micro offline gains. The concept of micro offline gains refers to performance improvements during short rest periods interspersed with practice, rather than during practice itself. This phenomenon is crucial for the acquisition and consolidation of motor skills and has been observed across various learning contexts. (…)
Sörnyei, D., Vass, Á., Németh, D., & Farkas, K. (2024). Autistic and schizotypal traits exhibit similarities in their impact on mentalization and adult attachment impairments: A cross-sectional study. BMC Psychiatry, 24, 654.
Deficits in mentalizing and attachment occur in the autism and schizophrenia spectrum, and their extended traits in the general population. Parental attachment and the broader social environment highly influence the development of mentalizing. Given the similarities in the symptomatology and neurodevelopmental correlates of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and schizophrenia (SCH), it is crucial to identify their overlaps and differences to support screening, differential diagnosis, and intervention. (…)
Székely, A., Török, B., Kiss, M., Janacsek, K., Németh, D., & Orbán, G. (2024). Identifying transfer learning in the reshaping of inductive biases. Open Mind, 8, 1107–1128.
Transfer learning, the reuse of newly acquired knowledge under novel circumstances, is a critical hallmark of human intelligence that has frequently been pitted against the capacities of artificial learning agents. Yet, the computations relevant to transfer learning have been little investigated in humans. The benefit of efficient inductive biases (meta-level constraints that shape learning, often referred as priors in the Bayesian learning approach), has been both theoretically and experimentally established. (…)
Zavecz, Z., Janacsek, K., Simor, P., Cohen, M. X., & Nemeth, D. (2024). Similarity of brain activity patterns during learning and subsequent resting state predicts memory consolidation. Cortex.
Spontaneous reactivation of brain activity from learning to a subsequent off-line period has been implicated as a neural mechanism underlying memory consolidation. However, similarities in brain activity may also emerge as a result of individual, trait-like characteristics. Here, we introduced a novel approach for analyzing continuous EEG data to investigate learning-induced changes as well as trait-like characteristics in brain activity underlying memory consolidation. (…)
Akil, A. M., Cserjési, R., Nagy, T., Demetrovics, Z., Németh, D., & Logemann, H. A. (2024). The relationship between frontal alpha asymmetry and behavioral and brain activity indices of reactive inhibitory control. Journal of Neurophysiology, 132(2), 362-374.
Reactive inhibitory control plays an important role in phenotype of different diseases/different phases of a disease. One candidate electrophysiological marker of inhibitory control is frontal alpha asymmetry (FAA). FAA reflects the relative difference in contralateral frontal brain activity. However, the relationship between FAA and potential behavioral/brain activity indices of reactive inhibitory control is not yet clear. We assessed the relationship between resting-state FAA and indicators of reactive inhibitory control. (…)
Ngetich, R., Villalba-García, C., Soborun, Y., Vékony, T., Czakó, A., Demetrovics, Z., & Németh, D. (2024). Learning and memory processes in behavioural addiction: A systematic review. Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews, 163, 105747.
Similar to addictive substances, addictive behaviours such as gambling and gaming are associated with maladaptive modulation of key brain areas and functional networks implicated in learning and memory. Therefore, this review sought to understand how different learning and memory processes relate to behavioural addictions and to unravel their underlying neural mechanisms. (…)
Takacs, A., Toth‐Faber, E., Schubert, L., Tarnok, Z., Ghorbani, F., Trelenberg, M., … & Beste, C. (2024). Neural representations of statistical and rule‐based predictions in Gilles de la Tourette syndrome. Human Brain Mapping, 45(8), e26719.
Gilles de la Tourette syndrome (GTS) is a disorder characterised by motor and vocal tics, which may represent habitual actions as a result of enhanced learning of associations between stimuli and responses (S-R). In this study, we investigated how adults with GTS and healthy controls (HC) learn two types of regularities in a sequence: statistics (non-adjacent probabilities) and rules (predefined order). Participants completed a visuomotor sequence learning task while EEG was recorded. (…)
Kóbor, A., Janacsek, K., Hermann, P., Zavecz, Z., Varga, V., Csépe, V., … & Nemeth, D. (2024). Finding pattern in the noise: Persistent implicit statistical knowledge impacts the processing of unpredictable stimuli. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 36(7), 1239-1264.
Humans can extract statistical regularities of the environment to predict upcoming events. Previous research recognized that implicitly acquired statistical knowledge remained persistent and continued to influence behavior even when the regularities were no longer present in the environment. Here, in an fMRI experiment, we investigated how the persistence of statistical knowledge is represented in the brain. (…)
Tóth-Fáber, E., Janacsek, K., & Nemeth, D. (2024). How do alterations of the basal ganglia affect procedural memory in Tourette syndrome?. Current Opinion in Behavioral Sciences, 57, 101376.
Tourette syndrome (TS) is a childhood-onset neurodevelopmental disorder characterized by repetitive movements and vocalizations called tics, which are linked to alterations in the cortico-basal ganglia-thalamo-cortical (CBGTC) circuits. CBGTC circuits also play a key role in procedural memory, which is a fundamental human ability that enables us to extract repeating patterns from the environment and underlies skill-based and habitual behavior. The present review summarizes findings on procedural memory in TS, with a focus on more recent studies probing the acquisition and consolidation of procedural knowledge in TS. (…)
Pedraza, F., Farkas, B. C., Vékony, T., Haesebaert, F., Phelipon, R., Mihalecz, I., Janacsek, K., Anders, R., Tillmann, B., Plancher, G., & Nemeth, D. (2024). Evidence for a competitive relationship between executive functions and statistical learning. npj Science of Learning.9(30)
The ability of the brain to extract patterns from the environment and predict future events, known as statistical learning, has been proposed to interact in a competitive manner with prefrontal lobe related networks and their characteristic cognitive or executive functions. However, it remains unclear whether these cognitive functions also show competitive relationship with implicit statistical learning across individuals and at the level of latent executive function components. In order to address this currently unknown aspect, we investigated, in two independent experiments (NStudy1 = 186, NStudy2 = 157), the relationship between implicit statistical learning, measured by the Alternating Serial Reaction Time task, and executive functions, measured by multiple neuropsychological tests. (…)
Our research
Our lab investigates the neural mechanisms and dynamics of learning and memory consolidation across the human lifespan. We use various experimental paradigms and techniques to examine how the brain integrates prior knowledge and experience to generate adaptive predictions and behaviors. We aim to elucidate the cognitive and neural processes that underlie normal and pathological cognition in typical and atypical development, aging, and neurological and psychiatric disorders.
Memory consolidation is the process of strengthening and integrating new information into long-term memory. We examine how memory consolidation is influenced by time, sleep, and brain states using various methods such as electroencephalography (EEG), non-invasive brain stimulation, and behavioral experiments. We are particularly interested in ultra-fast consolidation, which occurs within seconds after learning. Our latest theory introduces local sleep-dependent consolidation as a new type of consolidation that occurs when specific brain regions can enter sleep-like states and facilitate memory consolidation and predictive processes during wakefulness.
The brain is a complex ecosystem of interacting cognitive functions. Studying these functions in isolation may not capture the full picture of how the brain works. Thus, our research focuses on the interplay between statistical learning and prefrontal functions, two key aspects of cognition that enable us to adapt to our environment and achieve our goals.We aim to determine the cooperative and competing processes, as well as to identify the neural underpinnings of these interactions in the brain.