Neural Correlates of Recency Judgment

Abstract

The prefrontal cortex plays a critical role in recollecting the temporal context of past events. The present study used eventrelated functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and explored the neural correlates of temporal-order retrieval during a recency judgment paradigm. In this paradigm, after study of a list of words presented sequentially, subjects were presented with two of the studied words simultaneously and were asked which of the two words was studied more recently. Two types of such retrieval trials with varied (high and low) levels of demand for temporal-order retrieval were intermixed and compared using event-related fMRI. The intraparadigm comparison of high versus low demand trials revealed brain regions with activation that was modulated on the basis of demand for temporal-order retrieval. Multiple lateral prefrontal regions including the middle and inferior lateral prefrontal cortex were prominently activated. Activation was also observed in the anterior prefrontal cortex and the medial temporal cortex, regions well documented to be related to memory retrieval in general. The modulation of brain activity in these regions suggests a detailed pathway that is engaged during recency judgment.Key words: recency; prefrontal; memory; retrieval; context; fMRIThe prefrontal cortex has been implicated in several types of mnemonic functions (Stuss and Benson, 1986;Fuster, 1997). Among them is recollection of the temporal context of past events, an ability that has most often been tested using recency judgment paradigms in which two events are to be judged as to which has occurred more recently (Yntema and Trask, 1963). Since the initial report in Milner (1971), several neuropsychological studies of humans and monkeys have provided evidence that damage to the lateral prefrontal cortex impairs temporal-order retrieval and that the effect of damage is greater in retrieving the temporal order of past events than in retrieving the past events themselves (Shimamura et al., 1990;Milner et al., 1991;Petrides, 1991;Butters et al., 1994). Previous neuroimaging studies investigating recency judgment used this temporal-order versus item retrieval contrast and revealed prefrontal activation associated with temporal-order retrieval relative to item retrieval (Eyler Zorrilla et al., 1996;Cabeza et al., 1997Cabeza et al., , 2000.The contrast of the dichotomous temporal-order versus item retrieval is useful in detecting functional characteristics that are differential among particular brain regions, as is most typically used in the demonstration of double dissociation between regions. However, this approach leaves unspecified the brain activity related to temporal-order retrieval itself at a whole-brain level because, for instance, it is possible that brain activity common to temporal-order and item retrieval is subtracted out even when the activity is related to temporal-order retrieval. An alternative approach complements the previous approach and allows us to uncover the whole neural correlates of temporal-order retr...

Prefrontal contributions to domain-general executive control processes during temporal context retrieval

“…In addition, activity in right DLPFC was significantly correlated with recency accuracy, and marginally correlated with recency RT. In general, our findings of greater right DLPFC activity during retrieval events versus ordering events are consistent with studies that have found greater right PFC during EM retrieval in general (Habib, Nyberg, & Tulving, 2003;Nyberg, Cabeza, & Tulving, 1996) and during temporal context retrieval specifically (Dobbins, Rice, Wagner, & Schacter, 2003;Konishi et al, 2002;Rajah & McIntosh, 2006;Suzuki et al, 2002). However, due to the relatively short delay (30 sec) between encoding and retrieval in the current study design, it may be argued that the retrieval tasks employed in this study reflected retrieval from WM and not from EM.…”

“…Neuroimaging studies have highlighted the role of various PFC regions during temporal context retrieval (Cabeza, Anderson, Houle, Mangels, & Nyberg, 2000;Dobbins, Rice, Wagner, & Schacter, 2003;Dudukovic & Wagner, 2007;Konishi et al, 2002;Suzuki et al, 2002). However, it remains unclear which of these PFC activations are related to mediating domain or task-specific cognitive control processes such as, recollection-based retrieval monitoring, familiarity-based retrieval monitoring, retrieval success and establishing retrieval mode (Dobbins, Rice, Wagner, & Schacter, 2003;Nyberg et al, 1995;Yonelinas, Otten, Shaw, & Rugg, 2005) and which are related to mediating domaingeneral cognitive control processes including strategic ordering and controlled selection processes, to name a few (Moscovitch, 2002;Rajah & McIntosh, 2006;Rowe, Toni, Josephs, Frackowiak, & Passingham, 2000;Schumacher, Elston, & D'Esposito, 2003).…”

“…It was found that both recency memory tasks engaged bilateral ventrolateral and dorsolateral PFC regions to a greater degree than the recognition memory task. Konishi et al (Konishi et al, 2002) used fMRI to examine temporal order memory retrieval by varying the temporal distance between the two words presented during a recency trial. An increased demand on temporal order recollection (smaller temporal distance) during recency judgments was related to increased activity in bilateral dorsolateral PFC (DLPFC), bilateral medial PFC and left ventrolateral PFC (VLPFC).…”

Neural mechanism in anterior prefrontal cortex for inhibition of prolonged set interference

“…Previous studies have demonstrated that the posterior part of the inferior frontal sulcus is implicated in inhibitory control during set shifting͞task switching (13,14,(16)(17)(18)(19)39) and during other inhibitory situations such as the go͞no-go (32-36), Stroop (40), and controlled retrieval tasks (41)(42)(43)(44). The region of interest analysis in the present work also showed that, besides the left anterior prefrontal region, the release trials also involved the posterior inferior prefrontal region.…”

Immediate memory for “when, where and what”: Short‐delay retrieval using dynamic naturalistic material

“…The number of segments across all clips ranged between 4 and 10. The first and last segments were always excluded for the retrieval tests to mitigate end‐of‐list distinctiveness effects [Cabeza et al, 1997; Konishi et al, 2002]. Specifically for Exp 2, we divided each clip into 20 segments with equal duration.…”