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The cognitive neuroscience og remembering

Nature Reviews Neuroscience volume 2, pages 624–634 (2001)Cite this article

Key Points

  • Retrieving a memory seems to involve a set of distinct processes, with different neural substrates, that are coordinated to orchestrate the act of remembering. Recent advances in cognitive science, including brain-imaging techniques, have provided evidence for the nature of these processes.

  • Frontal cortical areas are central to the retrieval attempt. Anterior frontal-polar cortex is activated specifically during retrieval attempts for both verbal and non-verbal material, whereas more posterior frontal cortex is activated during both retrieval and processing of verbal material. Posterior frontal activation becomes stronger as remembering becomes more difficult. Overall, frontal cortex seems to be important for strategic aspects of retrieval.

  • A network of left-sided cortical areas, including left parietal cortex, shows activity that correlates with retrieval success. This may act as a signal to inform a person that information is from the past rather than the present.

  • The content of a memory is probably encoded as a 'reactivation' of those areas of cortex that are activated by sensory perception in the same modality, although the systems used for perception and retrieval do not completely overlap. It is unclear to what extent early sensory cortices are activated by retrieval.

  • Retrieval may be initiated when top–down modulation from frontal cortex interacts with sensory representation of cues to trigger reactivation of the cortical networks that represent a memory, with a network including left parietal cortex possibly signalling that the representation is old. A sense of familiarity may occur when frontal and parietal regions are activated without detailed reactivation of sensory areas, whereas detailed recollection may rely on more extensive activity to represent the content of the memory.

Abstract

Remembering draws on a diverse array of cognitive processes to construct a representation that is experienced as a copy of the original past. The results of brain-imaging, neuropsychological and physiological studies indicate that distinct neocortical regions might interact with medial temporal lobe structures to reinstate a memory. Frontal regions mediate the strategic retrieval attempt and monitor its outcome, with dissociated frontal regions making functionally separate contributions to retrieval. Parietal and frontal regions might supply a signal that information is old during the process of retrieval, allowing us to perceive that reconstructed representations are memories, rather than the products of new stimuli in the environment. Domain-specific cortical regions are reactivated during vivid remembering and contribute to the contents of a memory. Here, we describe how these regions interact to orchestrate an act of remembering.

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Figure 1: Multiple, functionally distinct frontal regions are active during retrieval attempt and monitoring.
Figure 2: Parietal cortex is associated with retrieval success.
Figure 3: Subsets of regions activated during perception are reactivated during vivid remembering.
Figure 4: Paired-associate recall tasks in monkeys might indicate single-unit correlates of reactivation.
Figure 5: Regions of visual cortex that respond preferentially to different kinds of objects during perception show similar preference during imagery of those objects.

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Acknowledgements

We thank L. Jacoby and H. Roediger for pointing us to relevant literature. The Howard Hughes Medical Institute, the James S. McDonnell Foundation, the Alzheimer's Association of America, and the National Institutes of Health provided support.

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  1. Department of Psychology, Howard Hughes Medical Institute at Washington University, One Brookings Drive, Campus Box 1125, St Louis, 63130, Missouri, USA

    Randy L. Buckner & Mark E. Wheeler

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Alzheimer's disease

MIT ENCYCLOPEDIA OF COGNITIVE SCIENCES

Positron emission tomography

Magnetic resonance imaging

Wilder Penfield

Imagery

Glossary

HAEMODYNAMIC IMAGING METHODS

Techniques used to measure neural activity by monitoring changes in regional blood flow. Positron emission tomography (PET) measures blood flow directly. Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) measures oxygen concentration in the blood that relates to blood flow. PET and fMRI have good spatial resolution but relatively poor temporal resolution.

BRODMANN AREAS

(BA). Korbinian Brodmann (1868–1918) was an anatomist who divided the cerebral cortex into numbered subdivisions based on cell arrangements, types and staining properties (for example, the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex contains subdivisions, including BA 44, BA 45, BA 47 and others). Modern derivatives of his maps are commonly used as the reference system for discussion of brain-imaging findings.

MEMORY TESTS

Formats used to test explicit retrieval in the laboratory vary in relation to how much information is provided to aid retrieval. In free recall, items are recalled in an open fashion (“Recall the words from the list.”). In cued-recall, item-by-item aids are given as cues (“Recall the word that began with cou.”). In recognition, the full item is given and the test is to decide whether the item was studied (“Was the word ketchup presented earlier?”).

EVENT-RELATED FMRI

A variant of functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) methods that allows neural correlates of individual trials or classes of trials to be isolated and compared.

ELECTROENCEPHALOGRAPHY

(EEG). A technique used to measure neural activity by monitoring electrical signals from the brain that reach the scalp. EEG has good temporal resolution but relatively poor spatial resolution.

SOURCE MEMORY TEST

A form of explicit retrieval test in which a specific attribute of the study episode is queried (“Was the dog studied as a sound or picture?”).

SINGLE-UNIT RECORDING

A method used to measure the activity of individual neurons in awake, behaving animals. This method has excellent spatial and temporal resolution, but can only survey activity over small numbers of neurons.

PAIRED-ASSOCIATE RECALL

A form of retrieval test in which item pairs are studied (“dog–cat”). At test, one member of the pair is given to cue retrieval of the other (“dog”).

RECOLLECTION AND FAMILIARITY

Theoretical memory processes that are believed to contribute to explicit retrieval. Familiarity refers to the general sense that something is familiar (old). Recollection refers to retrieval of specific details and the context associated with an earlier episode.

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Buckner, R., Wheeler, M. The cognitive neuroscience og remembering. Nat Rev Neurosci 2, 624–634 (2001). https://doi.org/10.1038/35090048

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