Jesse Rissman

Professor
Ph.D.: University of California, Berkeley
Primary Area: Cognitive Psychology
Secondary Area(s): Behavioral Neuroscience
Address: 8534 Pritzker Hall
Email: rissman@psych.ucla.edu
Lab Website: http://rissmanlab.psych.ucla.edu

Research and Teaching Interests:

My lab investigates the ways in which goal-directed attentional control processes serve to modulate the formation, maintenance, and retrieval of memories. We use functional MRI techniques to not only elucidate the contributions of individual brain regions to mnemonic processing and its regulation, but also to characterize the critically important interactions between brain regions that ultimately give rise to these cognitive processes. Furthermore, our work seeks to exploit the rich informational content of distributed brain activity and connectivity patterns in order to gain insights into the mnemonic computations being performed in distinct neural circuits and their relationship to behavior. Our research has showcased how regions of the prefrontal cortex, known to be important for cognitive control, interact with perceptual areas of the brain, as well as with memory-related areas such as the hippocampus, to help prioritize the memorization of relevant information. We are actively examining how these neural networks dynamically adjust their connectivity as we toggle the focus of our attention between stimuli in the external world and the thoughts and memories that occupy our internal world. Our experiments often strive to study memory in naturalistic contexts, for instance by using wearable cameras to capture people’s real-world events or by having learning occur within immersive virtual reality environments. Please visit my lab website for more information: rissmanlab.psych.ucla.edu

Representative Publications:

• Kadlec, J., Walsh, C.R., Sade, U., Amir, A., Rissman, J., and Ramot, M. (2024). A measure of reliability convergence to select and optimize cognitive tasks for individual differences research. Communications Psychology, 2(1), 64.
• Rissman, J. and Murphy, E.R. (2024) Brain-based Memory Detection and the New Science of Mind Reading. In Kahana, M.J. & Wagner, A.D. (Eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Human Memory (pp. 2329-2350). Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.
• Walsh, C.R. and Rissman, J. (2023). Behavioral representational similarity analysis reveals how episodic learning is influenced by and reshapes semantic memory. Nature Communications, 14, 7548.
• Han, L.T., Cohen, M.S., He, L.K., Green, L.M., Knowlton, B.J., Castel, A.D, and Rissman, J. (2023) Establishing a causal role for left ventrolateral prefrontal cortex in value-directed memory encoding with high-definition transcranial direct current stimulation. Neuropsychologia, 181, 108489.
• Essoe, J. K. Y., Reggente, N., Ohno, A. A., Baek, Y. H., Dell’italia, J., and Rissman, J. (2022). Enhancing learning and retention with distinctive virtual reality environments and mental context reinstatement. npj Science of Learning, 7, 31.
• Reggente, N., Essoe, J.K-Y., Baek, H.Y-J., and Rissman, J. (2020). The Method of Loci in virtual reality: Explicit binding of objects to spatial contexts enhances subsequent memory recall. Journal of Cognitive Enhancement, 4, 12-30.
• Westphal, A.J., Chow, T.E., Ngoy, C., Zuo, X., Liao, V., Storozuk. L.A., Peters, M.A.K., Wu, A.D., and Rissman, J. (2019). Anodal transcranial direct current stimulation to left rostrolateral prefrontal cortex selectively improves source memory retrieval. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 31(9), 1-12.
• Reggente, N., Essoe, J.K-Y., Aghajan, Z.A., Tavakoli, A.V., McGuire, J.F., Suthana, N.A., and Rissman, J. (2018) Enhancing the ecological validity of fMRI memory research using virtual reality. Frontiers in Neuroscience, 12, 408.
• Chow, T.E., Westphal, A.J., and Rissman J. (2018) Multivoxel pattern classification differentiates personally experienced event memories from secondhand event knowledge. NeuroImage, 176, 110-123.
• Bainbridge, W.A. and Rissman J. (2018) Dissociating neural markers of stimulus memorability and subjective recognition during episodic retrieval. Scientific Reports, 8, 8679.
• Westphal, A.J., Wang, S., and Rissman, J. (2017) Episodic memory retrieval benefits from a less modular brain network organization. Journal of Neuroscience, 37(13), 3523–3531.
• De Shetler, N.G. & Rissman, J. (2017) Dissociable profiles of generalization/discrimination in the human hippocampus during associative retrieval. Hippocampus, 27, 115-121.
• Westphal, A.J., Reggente, N., Ito, K., and Rissman, J. (2016) Shared and distinct contributions of rostrolateral prefrontal cortex to analogical reasoning and episodic memory retrieval. Human Brain Mapping, 37, 896-912.
• Rissman, J., Chow, T.E., Reggente, N., and Wagner, A.D. (2016) Decoding fMRI signatures of real-world autobiographical memory retrieval. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 28(4), 604–620.
• Rissman, J. and Wagner, A.D. (2012) Distributed representations in memory: Insights from functional brain imaging. Annual Review of Psychology, 63, 101-128.
• Rissman, J., Greely, H.T., and Wagner, A.D. (2010) Detecting individual memories through the neural decoding of memory states and past experience. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, USA, 107, 9849-9854.
• Rissman, J., Gazzaley, A., and D’Esposito, M. (2008) Dynamic adjustments in frontal, hippocampal, and inferior temporal interactions with increasing visual working memory load. Cerebral Cortex, 18, 1618-1629.
• Rissman, J., Gazzaley, A., and D’Esposito, M. (2004) Measuring functional connectivity during distinct stages of a cognitive task. NeuroImage, 23, 752-763.