Cognition, Behavior, and Memory
Author: María Carla Navas | Email: mcarla.n94@gmail.com
María Carla Navas1°, Ignacio Ferrelli1°, María Eugenia Pedreira1°, Rodrigo Fernandez1°, Luz Bavassi1°2°
1° Laboratorio de Neurociencias de la Memoria, IFIByNE, UBA-CONICET
2° Deparamento de Fìsica, FCEN, UBA
Autobiographical memory (AM) is the ability to recall personal experiences and reflect on them, this plays a crucial role in shaping and maintaining our identity. Naturally, AMs can change through time and it’s been proposed that older AMs are recalled with less vivid event-specific details and more general gist-like details than newer events. Although the mechanisms involved in AM storage and retrieval and how these change with time are still a matter of debate, there’s evidence that neural oscillatory mechanisms in the range of theta band (4-8 Hz) are involved in the modulation of a brain network supporting the retrieval that includes deeper regions such as the medial temporal lobe and frontal and parietal regions. In this work, we sought to investigate the retrieval dynamics of AMs of different ages in order to provide evidence of distinct neurophysiological signatures involving the role of theta rhythm and its link to behavioral characteristics of the retrieval process. Due to AM nature, it’s important to think of testing approaches capable of capturing its intrinsic features in the most naturalistic way possible. Here, we cued people to remember old or new personal events while using EEG recording techniques. We found an increase in theta band power in the frontocentral region for old (>3y) compared to recent (<1y) AMs. This result is a first step to dive deeper into characterizing the changes in neural signatures of retrieval as a function of AMs age.