Neural correlates of strategic memory retrieval: differentiating between spatial-associative and temporal-associative strategies.
Remembering complex, multidimensional information typically requires strategic memory retrieval, during which information is structured, for instance by spatial- or temporal associations. Although brain regions involved in strategic memory retrieval in general have been identified, differences in retrieval operations related to distinct retrieval strategies are not well-understood. Thus, our aim was to identify brain regions whose activity is differentially involved in spatial-associative and temporal-associative retrieval. First, we showed that our behavioral paradigm probing memory for a set of object-location associations promoted the use of a spatial-associative structure following an encoding condition that provided multiple associations to neighboring objects (spatial-associative condition) and the use of a temporal-associative structure following another study condition that provided predominantly temporal associations between sequentially presented items (temporal-associative condition). Next, we used an adapted version of this paradigm for functional MRI, where we contrasted brain activity related to the recall of object-location associations that were either encoded in the spatial- or the temporal-associative condition. In addition to brain regions generally involved in recall, we found that activity in higher-order visual regions, including the fusiform gyrus, the lingual gyrus, and the cuneus, was relatively enhanced when subjects used a spatial-associative structure for retrieval. In contrast, activity in the globus pallidus and the thalamus was relatively enhanced when subjects used a temporal-associative structure for retrieval. In conclusion, we provide evidence for differential involvement of these brain regions related to different types of strategic memory retrieval and the neural structures described play a role in either spatial-associative or temporal-associative memory retrieval.
de Rover
Mischa
M
F.C. Donders Center for Cognitive Neuroimaging, Radboud University Nijmegen, 6500 HB Nijmegen, The Netherlands. md415@cam.ac.uk
Petersson
Karl Magnus
KM
van der Werf
Sieberen P
SP
Cools
Alexander R
AR
Berger
Hans J
HJ
Fernández
Guillén
G
D000328:Adult; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008568:Memory / Q000502:physiology; D011939:Mental Recall / Q000502:physiology*; D009415:Nerve Net / Q000502:physiology*; D010775:Photic Stimulation / Q000379:methods*; D013028:Space Perception / Q000502:physiology*; D013998:Time Perception / Q000502:physiology*