Searching across hundreds of databases

Our searching services are busy right now. Your search will reload in five seconds.

X
Forgot Password

If you have forgotten your password you can enter your email here and get a temporary password sent to your email.

X
Forgot Password

If you have forgotten your password you can enter your email here and get a temporary password sent to your email.

The Primacy of Spatial Context in the Neural Representation of Events.

The Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience | 2018

Some theories of episodic memory hypothesize that spatial context plays a fundamental role in episodic memory, acting as a scaffold on which episodes are constructed. A prediction based on this hypothesis is that spatial context should play a primary role in the neural representation of an event. To test this hypothesis in humans, male and female participants imagined events, composed of familiar locations, people, and objects, during an fMRI scan. We used multivoxel pattern analysis to determine the neural areas in which events could be discriminated based on each feature. We found that events could be discriminated according to their location in areas throughout the autobiographical memory network, including the parahippocampal cortex and posterior hippocampus, retrosplenial cortex, posterior cingulate cortex, precuneus, and medial prefrontal cortex. Events were also discriminable based on person and object features, but in fewer regions. Comparing classifier performance in regions involved in memory for scenes and events demonstrated that the location of an event was more accurately classified than the person or object involved. These results support theories that suggest that spatial context is a prominent defining feature of episodic memory.SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT Remembered and imagined events are complex, consisting of many elements, including people, objects, and locations. In this study, we sought to determine how these types of elements differentially contribute to how the brain represents an event. Participants imagined events consisting of familiar locations, people, and objects (e.g., kitchen, mom, umbrella) while their brain activity was recorded with fMRI. We found that the neural patterns of activity in brain regions associated with spatial and episodic memory could distinguish events based on their location, and to some extent, based on the people and objects involved. These results suggest that the spatial context of an event plays an important role in how an event is represented in the brain.

Pubmed ID: 29440386 RIS Download

Publication data is provided by the National Library of Medicine ® and PubMed ®. Data is retrieved from PubMed ® on a weekly schedule. For terms and conditions see the National Library of Medicine Terms and Conditions.

This is a list of tools and resources that we have found mentioned in this publication.


BrainNet Viewer (data processing software)

RRID:SCR_009446

Aa brain network visualization tool, which can help researchers to visualize structural and functional connectivity patterns from different levels in a quick, easy, and flexible way.

View all literature mentions

FreeSurfer (software resource)

RRID:SCR_001847

Open source software suite for processing and analyzing human brain MRI images. Used for reconstruction of brain cortical surface from structural MRI data, and overlay of functional MRI data onto reconstructed surface. Contains automatic structural imaging stream for processing cross sectional and longitudinal data. Provides anatomical analysis tools, including: representation of cortical surface between white and gray matter, representation of the pial surface, segmentation of white matter from rest of brain, skull stripping, B1 bias field correction, nonlinear registration of cortical surface of individual with stereotaxic atlas, labeling of regions of cortical surface, statistical analysis of group morphometry differences, and labeling of subcortical brain structures.Operating System: Linux, macOS.

View all literature mentions

FSL (software toolkit)

RRID:SCR_002823

Software library of image analysis and statistical tools for fMRI, MRI and DTI brain imaging data. Include registration, atlases, diffusion MRI tools for parameter reconstruction and probabilistic taractography, and viewer. Several brain atlases, integrated into FSLView and Featquery, allow viewing of structural and cytoarchitectonic standard space labels and probability maps for cortical and subcortical structures and white matter tracts. Includes Harvard-Oxford cortical and subcortical structural atlases, Julich histological atlas, JHU DTI-based white-matter atlases, Oxford thalamic connectivity atlas, Talairach atlas, MNI structural atlas, and Cerebellum atlas.

View all literature mentions

ANTS - Advanced Normalization ToolS (software resource)

RRID:SCR_004757

THIS RESOURCE IS NO LONGER IN SERVICE. Documented on January 11, 2023. Software package designed to enable researchers with advanced tools for brain and image mapping. Many of the ANTS registration tools are diffeomorphic*, but deformation (elastic and BSpline) transformations are available. Unique components of ANTS include multivariate similarity metrics, landmark guidance, the ability to use label images to guide the mapping and both greedy and space-time optimal implementations of diffeomorphisms. The symmetric normalization (SyN) strategy is a part of the ANTS toolkit as is directly manipulated free form deformation (DMFFD). *Diffeomorphism: a differentiable map with differentiable inverse. In general, these maps are generated by integrating a time-dependent velocity field. ANTS Applications: * Gray matter morphometry based on the jacobian and/or cortical thickness. * Group and single-subject optimal templates. * Multivariate DT + T1 brain templates and group studies. * Longitudinal brain mapping -- special similarity metric options. * Neonatal and pediatric brain segmentation. * Pediatric brain mapping. * T1 brain mapping guided by tractography and connectivity. * Diffusion tensor registration based on scalar or connectivity data. * Brain mapping in the presence of lesions. * Lung and pulmonary tree registration. * User-guided hippocampus labeling, also of sub-fields. * Group studies and statistical analysis of cortical thickness, white matter volume, diffusion tensor-derived metrics such as fractional anisotropy and mean diffusion.

View all literature mentions

Analysis of Functional NeuroImages (software resource)

RRID:SCR_005927

Set of (mostly) C programs that run on X11+Unix-based platforms (Linux, Mac OS X, Solaris, etc.) for processing, analyzing, and displaying functional MRI (FMRI) data defined over 3D volumes and over 2D cortical surface meshes. AFNI is freely distributed as source code plus some precompiled binaries.

View all literature mentions

E-Prime (software resource)

RRID:SCR_009567

A suite of applications to fulfill all of your computerized experiment needs. Used by more than 15,000 professionals in the research community, E-Prime provides a truly easy-to-use environment for computerized experiment design, data collection, and analysis. E-Prime provides millisecond precision timing to ensure the accuracy of your data. E-Prime's flexibility to create simple to complex experiments is ideal for both novice and advanced users. The E-Prime suite of applications includes: * E-Studio ? Drag and drop graphical interface for experiment design * E-Basic ? Underlying scripting language of E-Prime * E-Run ? Once the experiment is generated with a single click, E-Run affords you the millisecond precision of stimulus presentation, synchronizations, and data collection. * E-Merge ? Merges your single session data files for group analysis * E-DataAid ? Data management utility * E-Recovery ? Recovers data files

View all literature mentions