Interplay of the long axis of the hippocampus and ventromedial prefrontal cortex in schema‐related memory retrieval

Abstract

When new information is relevant to prior knowledge or schema, it can be learned and remembered better. Rodent studies have suggested that the hippocampus and ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC) are important for processing schema‐related information. However, there are inconsistent findings from human studies on the involvement of the hippocampus and its interaction with the vmPFC in schema‐related memory retrieval. To address these issues, we used a human analog of the rodent spatial schema task to compare brain activity during immediate retrieval of paired associations (PAs) in schema‐consistent and schema‐inconsistent conditions. The results showed that the anterior hippocampus was more involved in retrieving PAs in the schema‐consistent condition than in the schema‐inconsistent condition. Connectivity analyses showed that the anterior hippocampus had stronger coupling with the vmPFC when the participants retrieved newly learned PAs successfully in the schema‐consistent (vs. schema‐inconsistent) condition, whereas the coupling of the posterior hippocampus with the vmPFC showed the opposite. Taken together, the results shed light on how the long axis of the hippocampus and vmPFC interact to serve memory retrieval via different networks that differ by schema condition.

Schema representations in distinct brain networks support narrative memory during encoding and retrieval

“…Furthermore, while both posterior and anterior hippocampus exhibited significant story-specific representation at encoding, the correlation between encoding story scores and subsequent memory was significantly larger for posterior hippocampus. Taken together, these results suggest that posterior hippocampus plays an especially important role in representing story-specific details, consistent with theories of gist vs. detail representations in the hippocampus (Guo and Yang, 2020…”

“…Given the strong involvement of mPFC during schematic encoding, it has been hypothesized that mPFC may play a role at retrieval by providing schematic cues for memory search (van Kesteren et al, 2012). While some studies have found that schema-related activity in mPFC during retrieval benefits memory (Brod et al, 2015;van Kesteren et al, 2010b;Müller et al, 2020;Webb and Dennis, 2019;Raykov et al, 2021), others have not (van Buuren et al, 2014;Webb et al, 2016;Guo and Yang, 2020;van der Linden et al, 2017;Reagh et al, 2021). In our study, we did not observe strong mPFC schema reinstatement, nor were able to relate it to a behavioral memory benefit.…”

“…Many of the regions listed above (posterior parietal regions as well as lateral temporal cortex, superior frontal gyrus, middle frontal gyrus, and visual regions) have previously been implicated in schematic memory (Guo and Yang, 2020 Brod et al, 2015). Since our study can separately measure both storyspecific and schematic reactivation patterns during naturalistic recall, we were able to show that there was a memory boost from schema-related reactivation in these regions in addition to more general story reactivation effects.…”

“…The regions were extracted from an established 17-network atlas on the fsaverage6 surface (Yeo et al, 2011) that formed part of the larger default mode network. Our full hippocampus ROI was extracted from a freesurfer subcortical parcellation, which was then further split between an anterior at y > -20 and posterior portion at y <= -20 in MNI space (Guo and Yang, 2020;Poppenk et al, 2013).…”

Enhanced Written vs. Verbal Recall Accuracy Associated With Greater Prefrontal Activation: A Near-Infrared Spectroscopy Study

“…The prefrontal cortex (PFC) contributes to numerous advanced brain functions (D'Esposito et al, 2000;Davidson et al, 2006). Both the lateral and medial surfaces of the PFC receive projections from medial temporal lobe (MTL) and thalamus, which are part of the recognition memory network (Banks et al, 2012;Pergola and Suchan, 2013;Preston and Eichenbaum, 2013;Guo and Yang, 2019) which are critical for recall (Cohen et al, 2018). Medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) plays a critical role in remote, recent and short-term memories over a broad range of tasks (Euston et al, 2012).…”