Schedule of Events | Symposia

Category-selective functional connectivity increases with parts of the fronto-parietal control network during episodic memory retrieval

Poster Session C - Sunday, March 30, 2025, 5:00 – 7:00 pm EDT, Back Bay Ballroom/Republic Ballroom

Sarah Monier¹ (sxm200026@utdallas.edu), Sabina Srokova², Michael D. Rugg¹; ¹The University of Texas at Dallas, ²The University of Arizona

Episodic memory retrieval engages both content-selective and ‘core’ recollection regions. Prior research has examined functional connectivity between core regions during successful memory retrieval, but less is known about how content-selective regions functionally connect with other brain regions during retrieval, or how connectivity effects vary with age. Using psychophysiological interaction analyses, we investigated functional connectivity during a source memory task in which 24 younger (18-30 years) and 27 older adults (65-75 years) encoded concrete words paired with scenes or objects, and later identified studied words and their associated image category. Seed regions were identified by locating the maxima of category-selective ‘reinstatement effects’, and included scene-selective (parahippocampal and medial place areas) and object-selective [lateral occipital complex (LOC)] regions. Additional seeds included bilateral anterior and posterior hippocampus. During successful scene recollection, scene-selective regions demonstrated increased connectivity with both left prefrontal cortex, particularly left inferior frontal gyrus (IFG), and the left intraparietal sulcus (IPS). Analogously, the object-selective LOC demonstrated enhanced connectivity with left IFG and IPS during successful object recollection. Inclusive masking revealed that, in each hemisphere, the two scene selective regions demonstrated enhanced connectivity with a common left IFG cluster and, for the left hemisphere, with left IPS also. Anterior hippocampus also demonstrated recollection-related connectivity enhancement with IFG and IPS for scene recollection. These results extend prior findings to suggest that successful recollection is associated with elevated connectivity between content-selective cortical regions and parts of the fronto-parietal control network. None of the effects were moderated by age group.

Topic Area: LONG-TERM MEMORY: Episodic