PT - JOURNAL ARTICLE AU - Marin, Bianca M. AU - VanHaerents, Stephen A. AU - Voss, Joel L. AU - Bridge, Donna J. TI - Prefrontal Theta-Burst Stimulation Disrupts the Organizing Influence of Active Short-Term Retrieval on Episodic Memory AID - 10.1523/ENEURO.0347-17.2018 DP - 2018 Feb 05 TA - eneuro PG - ENEURO.0347-17.2018 4099 - http://www.eneuro.org/content/early/2018/02/05/ENEURO.0347-17.2018.short 4100 - http://www.eneuro.org/content/early/2018/02/05/ENEURO.0347-17.2018.full AB - Dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) is thought to organize items in working memory and this organizational role may also influence long-term memory. To causally test this hypothesized role of DLPFC in long-term memory formation, we used theta-burst noninvasive stimulation (TBS) to modulate DLPFC involvement in a memory task that assessed the influence of active short-term retrieval on later memory. Human subjects viewed three objects on a grid and then either actively retrieved or passively restudied one object’s location after a brief delay. Long-term memory for the other objects was assessed after a delay to evaluate the beneficial role of active short-term retrieval on subsequent memory for the entire set of object-locations. We found that DLPFC TBS had no significant effects on short-term memory. In contrast, DLPFC TBS impaired long-term memory selectively in the active-retrieval condition, but not in the passive-restudy condition. These findings are consistent with the hypothesized contribution of DLPFC to the organizational processes operative during active short-term retrieval that influence long-term memory, although other regions that were not stimulated could provide similar contributions. Notably, active-retrieval and passive-restudy conditions were intermixed, and therefore nonspecific influences of stimulation were well controlled. These results suggest that DLPFC is causally involved in organizing event information during active retrieval to support coherent long-term memory formation.Significance Statement Although dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) has been implicated in short-term working memory organization, its long-term memory contributions have not been established. Building on fMRI findings, we tested the role of DLPFC in organizing event information during memory formation to support long-term episodic memory. Our task involved both active-retrieval and passive-restudy encoding conditions, which varied the extent to which event elements were organized around select information. Modulation of DLPFC via theta burst noninvasive stimulation (TBS) selectively altered long-term memory formation in the active-retrieval condition, but not the passive-restudy condition. These results pinpoint the role of DLPFC in organizing event information to form coherent long-term memories and demonstrate that TBS can be used to disentangle cognitive processes that contribute to long-term memory.