Embodiment in episodic memory through premotor-hippocampal coupling

Episodic memory (EM) allows us to remember and relive past events and experiences and has been linked to cortical-hippocampal reinstatement of encoding activity. While EM is fundamental to establish a sense of self across time, this claim and its link to the sense of agency (SoA), based on bodily signals, has not been tested experimentally. Using real-time sensorimotor stimulation, immersive virtual reality, and fMRI we manipulated the SoA and report stronger hippocampal reinstatement for scenes encoded under preserved SoA, reflecting recall performance in a recognition task. We link SoA to EM showing that hippocampal reinstatement is coupled with reinstatement in premotor cortex, a key SoA region. We extend these findings in a severe amnesic patient whose memory lacked the normal dependency on the SoA. Premotor-hippocampal coupling in EM describes how a key aspect of the bodily self at encoding is neurally reinstated during the retrieval of past episodes, enabling a sense of self across time.

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Publication Details

Journal
Communications Biology
Published
2024-09-10
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1038/s42003-024-06757-7
Citations
13
Primary Topic
Action Observation and Synchronization
Type
article
Field-Weighted Citation Impact
8.37

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article

Embodiment in episodic memory through premotor-hippocampal coupling

Sara Stampacchia, Nathalie H. Meyer, Bruno Herbelin, Juliette Boscheron et al.
13 citations
Communications Biology
Action Observation and Synchronization
8.37
article

Embodiment in episodic memory through premotor-hippocampal coupling

Sara Stampacchia, Nathalie H. Meyer, Bruno Herbelin, Juliette Boscheron, Elizabeth Franc, Vincent Alvarez, Fabienne Esposito, Jevita Potheegadoo, Mariana Babo-Rebelo, Florian Lance, Baptiste Gauthier, Olaf Blanke, Marilia Morais Lacerda
article en
13 citations

Abstract

Episodic memory (EM) allows us to remember and relive past events and experiences and has been linked to cortical-hippocampal reinstatement of encoding activity. While EM is fundamental to establish a sense of self across time, this claim and its link to the sense of agency (SoA), based on bodily signals, has not been tested experimentally. Using real-time sensorimotor stimulation, immersive virtual reality, and fMRI we manipulated the SoA and report stronger hippocampal reinstatement for scenes encoded under preserved SoA, reflecting recall performance in a recognition task. We link SoA to EM showing that hippocampal reinstatement is coupled with reinstatement in premotor cortex, a key SoA region. We extend these findings in a severe amnesic patient whose memory lacked the normal dependency on the SoA. Premotor-hippocampal coupling in EM describes how a key aspect of the bodily self at encoding is neurally reinstated during the retrieval of past episodes, enabling a sense of self across time.

Communications BiologyVol. 7(1)
Hospital Neuchâtel (CH), University Hospital of Geneva (CH), Hôpital du Valais (CH), Clinique Romande de Réadaptation (CH), École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (CH)
National Science Foundation, Schweizerischer Nationalfonds zur Förderung der Wissenschaftlichen Forschung
Reduced inequalities
Openalex Percentile: Top 2%
Action Observation and Synchronization
8.37
DOIOpen Access PDFOpenAlex
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