Dataset Information

Evidence for remembering when events occurred in a rodent model of episodic memory.

ABSTRACT: The content of episodic memory consists of representations of unique past events. Episodic memories are grounded in a temporal framework (i.e., we remember when an event occurred). It has recently been argued that episodic-like memory in rats is qualitatively different from human episodic memory because, rather than remembering when an earlier past event occurred, rats used the cue of how long ago it occurred. We asked, therefore, whether rats remember the time of day at which they encountered a distinctive event, in addition to what occurred and where it happened. Rats were tested in the morning and afternoon, on separate days. A distinctive flavor (chocolate) was replenished at a daily-unique location at only one of these times. The interval between first and second daily opportunities to eat (study and test, respectively) was constant. Rats adjusted their revisits to the chocolate location at different times of day by using time of day rather than the cue of how long ago an event occurred. Two lines of evidence suggest that rats remembered the time at which the distinctive event occurred. First, under conditions in which the time of test (but not time of study) was novel, rats immediately transferred their knowledge of the chocolate contingency to the new test time. Second, under conditions in which predictions for study and test times were put in conflict, rats again used study time. Our results suggest that, at the time of memory assessment, rats remember when a recent episode occurred, similar to human episodic memory.

SUBMITTER: Zhou W

PROVIDER: S-EPMC2695044 | biostudies-literature | 2009 Jun

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Evidence for remembering when events occurred in a rodent model of episodic memory.

Zhou Wenyi W Crystal Jonathon D JD

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 20090520 23

The content of episodic memory consists of representations of unique past events. Episodic memories are grounded in a temporal framework (i.e., we remember when an event occurred). It has recently been argued that episodic-like memory in rats is qualitatively different from human episodic memory because, rather than remembering when an earlier past event occurred, rats used the cue of how long ago it occurred. We asked, therefore, whether rats remember the time of day at which they encountered a ...[more]

PMID: 19458264

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Project description:Recent evidence suggests that our capacities to remember the past and to imagine what might happen in the future largely depend on the same core brain network that includes the middle temporal lobe, the posterior cingulate/retrosplenial cortex, the inferior parietal lobe, the medial prefrontal cortex, and the lateral temporal cortex. However, the extent to which regions of this core brain network are also responsible for our capacity to think about what could have happened in our past, yet did not occur (i.e., episodic counterfactual thinking), is still unknown. The present study examined this issue. Using a variation of the experimental recombination paradigm (Addis, Pan, Vu, Laiser, & Schacter, 2009. Neuropsychologia. 47: 2222-2238), participants were asked both to remember personal past events and to envision alternative outcomes to such events while undergoing functional magnetic resonance imaging. Three sets of analyses were performed on the imaging data in order to investigate two related issues. First, a mean-centered spatiotemporal partial least square (PLS) analysis identified a pattern of brain activity across regions of the core network that was common to episodic memory and episodic counterfactual thinking. Second, a non-rotated PLS analysis identified two different patterns of brain activity for likely and unlikely episodic counterfactual thoughts, with the former showing significant overlap with the set of regions engaged during episodic recollection. Finally, a parametric modulation was conducted to explore the differential engagement of brain regions during counterfactual thinking, revealing that areas such as the parahippocampal gyrus and the right hippocampus were modulated by the subjective likelihood of counterfactual simulations. These results suggest that episodic counterfactual thinking engages regions that form the core brain network, and also that the subjective likelihood of our counterfactual thoughts modulates the engagement of different areas within this set of regions.

Dataset Information

Evidence for remembering when events occurred in a rodent model of episodic memory.

Publications

Evidence for remembering when events occurred in a rodent model of episodic memory.

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