Trends in Cognitive Sciences
ReviewFunctional neuroimaging of autobiographical memory
Introduction
Autobiographical memory (AM) is what is usually meant by the term ‘memory’ – the ability to remember past events from one's own life. The number of functional neuroimaging studies that investigate AM has increased rapidly in recent years. The results of these studies expand functional neuroimaging studies of laboratory memory (LM) in at least three domains. First, AM studies can inform our understanding of the complex constructive nature of AM retrieval, which is difficult to capture in the retrieval of simple laboratory stimuli. Second, AM studies can investigate recollective qualities of event memories that are often difficult to study in LM, such as emotion and vividness. Third, AM studies can investigate the retrieval of remote memories, which cannot be created in the laboratory but which is a crucial issue for theories of memory consolidation. This review focuses on the importance of functional neuroimaging investigations of AM with respect to these three domains.
Section snippets
Constructing autobiographical memories
Although AMs are often retrieved involuntarily [1], functional neuroimaging studies of AM have focused on voluntary retrieval processes that involve control operations interacting with different forms of memory. For example, try to remember the last time you had Chinese food. Unless the event occurred recently, recovering an AM requires a protracted and effortful memory search process guided by semantic knowledge about the world (e.g. Chinese restaurants in your city) and about your own life
Recollective qualities of autobiographical memory: emotion and vividness
AMs are ideal for investigating the contribution of emotion and vividness to the neural correlates of event memory because they often involve rich emotional content and vivid sensory details [19], which are qualities that are typically absent in LMs. Functional neuroimaging studies of emotion in AM have found that, in contrast to the typical left-lateralized activation pattern for neutral AMs, emotional AMs tend to elicit right-lateralized or bilateral activations 20, 21, 22, 23, consistent
The remoteness of autobiographical memory: implications for memory-consolidation models
One of the main strengths of functional neuroimaging of AM is that it enables the study of the neural correlates of remote memories, which cannot be created in the laboratory, and recent memories, which is a crucial issue for current models of memory consolidation. According to the standard consolidation model (SCM), the hippocampus has a time-limited role in the storage and retrieval of AMs, whereby memories become independent from the hippocampus and dependent upon neocortical areas following
Concluding remarks
Functional neuroimaging studies of AM can help to clarify the network of components that orchestrate the recovery and conscious experience of our personal past. Following a retrieval cue, memory search processes, which are mediated by left lateral PFC and interact with self-referential processes via medial PFC, lead to retrieval of a spatiotemporally specific event. Recollection, which is mediated by the hippocampus and the retrosplenial cortex, is enhanced by emotional processing in the
Acknowledgements
We would like to thank David C. Rubin for helpful comments on an earlier version of the manuscript.
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