Dr Heidrun Schultz | Complementary contributions of the medial prefrontal cortex versus medial temporal lobes to schema-guided memory retrieval

Our ability to retrieve memories critically depends on structures of the medial temporal lobe (MTL). However, these regions do not act in isolation. Specifically, the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) has been proposed to facilitate retrieval when it can be guided by schematic information. We here use a short-term memory task to test for the presence of schematic representations in the mPFC and their influence on MTL processes. Participants encode a stream of associations between abstract cues and different scenes (i.e., landscapes and buildings). They are then asked to retrieve a scene in response to its cue. In the schema condition, the same cue is always paired with the same scene category (e.g., a landscape), whereas this pairing is random in the non-schema condition. Using uni- and multivariate fMRI analyses, we will test our hypotheses that i) the mPFC represents schemas driving episodic retrieval, ii) the MTL represents the retrieved episodic information, and iii) retrieval is fostered by interactions between these regions.