Stress disrupts insight-driven mnemonic reconfiguration in the medial temporal lobe
Memories are not stored in isolation. Insight into the relationship of initially unrelated events may trigger a flexible reconfiguration of the mnemonic representation of these events. Such representational changes allow the integration of events into coherent episodes and help to build up-to-date-m...
| Main Authors: | , , , , |
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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Elsevier
2023-01-01
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| Series: | NeuroImage |
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1053811922009259 |
| _version_ | 1797961129985572864 |
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| author | Anna-Maria Grob Branka Milivojevic Arjen Alink Christian F. Doeller Lars Schwabe |
| author_facet | Anna-Maria Grob Branka Milivojevic Arjen Alink Christian F. Doeller Lars Schwabe |
| author_sort | Anna-Maria Grob |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | Memories are not stored in isolation. Insight into the relationship of initially unrelated events may trigger a flexible reconfiguration of the mnemonic representation of these events. Such representational changes allow the integration of events into coherent episodes and help to build up-to-date-models of the world around us. This process is, however, frequently impaired in stress-related mental disorders resulting in symptoms such as fragmented memories in PTSD. Here, we combined a real life-like narrative-insight task, in which participants learned how initially separate events are linked, with fMRI-based representational similarity analysis to test if and how acute stress interferes with the insight-driven reconfiguration of memories. Our results showed that stress reduced the activity of medial temporal and prefrontal areas when participants gained insight into the link between events. Moreover, stress abolished the insight-related increase in representational dissimilarity for linked events in the anterior part of the hippocampus as well as its association with measures of subsequent memory that we observed in non-stressed controls. However, memory performance, as assessed in a forced-choice recognition test, was even enhanced in the stress group. Our findings suggest that acute stress impedes the neural integration of events into coherent episodes but promotes long-term memory for these integrated narratives and may thus have implications for understanding memory distortions in stress-related mental disorders. |
| first_indexed | 2024-04-11T00:55:36Z |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj.art-8f71ac0e52c64eb7942345e5b2032c1e |
| institution | Directory Open Access Journal |
| issn | 1095-9572 |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-04-11T00:55:36Z |
| publishDate | 2023-01-01 |
| publisher | Elsevier |
| record_format | Article |
| series | NeuroImage |
| spelling | doaj.art-8f71ac0e52c64eb7942345e5b2032c1e2023-01-05T06:23:28ZengElsevierNeuroImage1095-95722023-01-01265119804Stress disrupts insight-driven mnemonic reconfiguration in the medial temporal lobeAnna-Maria Grob0Branka Milivojevic1Arjen Alink2Christian F. Doeller3Lars Schwabe4Department of Cognitive Psychology, Institute of Psychology, Universität Hamburg, Von-Melle-Park 5, Hamburg 20146, GermanyDonders Institute for Brain, Cognition and Behaviour, Radboud University, Nijmegen 6525 AJ, the NetherlandsDepartment of General Psychology, Institute of Psychology, Universität Hamburg, Hamburg 20146, Germany; Institute of Systems Neuroscience, University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf, Hamburg, 20246, GermanyMax-Planck-Insitute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences, Leipzig 04103, Germany; Kavli Institute for Systems Neuroscience, Centre for Neural Computation, The Egil and Pauline Braathen and Fred Kavli Centre for Cortical Microcircuits, Jebsen Centre for Alzheimer's Disease, Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Trondheim 7491, Norway; Wilhelm Wundt Institute of Psychology, Leipzig University, Leipzig 04109, GermanyDepartment of Cognitive Psychology, Institute of Psychology, Universität Hamburg, Von-Melle-Park 5, Hamburg 20146, Germany; Corresponding author.Memories are not stored in isolation. Insight into the relationship of initially unrelated events may trigger a flexible reconfiguration of the mnemonic representation of these events. Such representational changes allow the integration of events into coherent episodes and help to build up-to-date-models of the world around us. This process is, however, frequently impaired in stress-related mental disorders resulting in symptoms such as fragmented memories in PTSD. Here, we combined a real life-like narrative-insight task, in which participants learned how initially separate events are linked, with fMRI-based representational similarity analysis to test if and how acute stress interferes with the insight-driven reconfiguration of memories. Our results showed that stress reduced the activity of medial temporal and prefrontal areas when participants gained insight into the link between events. Moreover, stress abolished the insight-related increase in representational dissimilarity for linked events in the anterior part of the hippocampus as well as its association with measures of subsequent memory that we observed in non-stressed controls. However, memory performance, as assessed in a forced-choice recognition test, was even enhanced in the stress group. Our findings suggest that acute stress impedes the neural integration of events into coherent episodes but promotes long-term memory for these integrated narratives and may thus have implications for understanding memory distortions in stress-related mental disorders.http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1053811922009259Episodic memoryMnemonic integrationAnterior hippocampusInsightPTSD |
| spellingShingle | Anna-Maria Grob Branka Milivojevic Arjen Alink Christian F. Doeller Lars Schwabe Stress disrupts insight-driven mnemonic reconfiguration in the medial temporal lobe NeuroImage Episodic memory Mnemonic integration Anterior hippocampus Insight PTSD |
| title | Stress disrupts insight-driven mnemonic reconfiguration in the medial temporal lobe |
| title_full | Stress disrupts insight-driven mnemonic reconfiguration in the medial temporal lobe |
| title_fullStr | Stress disrupts insight-driven mnemonic reconfiguration in the medial temporal lobe |
| title_full_unstemmed | Stress disrupts insight-driven mnemonic reconfiguration in the medial temporal lobe |
| title_short | Stress disrupts insight-driven mnemonic reconfiguration in the medial temporal lobe |
| title_sort | stress disrupts insight driven mnemonic reconfiguration in the medial temporal lobe |
| topic | Episodic memory Mnemonic integration Anterior hippocampus Insight PTSD |
| url | http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1053811922009259 |
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