Elsevier

NeuroImage

Volume 143, December 2016, Pages 256-266
NeuroImage

Brain oscillations track the formation of episodic memories in the real world

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuroimage.2016.09.021Get rights and content

Highlights

  • Beta/theta power decreases accompany memory formation in natural environments.

  • Theta power decreases accompany item-to-spatial context binding.

  • Oscillatory subsequent memory effects can be replicated in the real world.

Abstract

Despite the well-known influence of environmental context on episodic memory, little has been done to increase contextual richness within the lab. This leaves a blind spot lingering over the neuronal correlates of episodic memory formation in day-to-day life. To address this, we presented participants with a series of words to memorise along a pre-designated route across campus while a mobile EEG system acquired ongoing neural activity. Replicating lab-based subsequent memory effects (SMEs), we identified significant low to mid frequency power decreases (<30 Hz), including beta power decreases over the left inferior frontal gyrus. When investigating the oscillatory correlates of temporal and spatial context binding, we found that items strongly bound to spatial context exhibited significantly greater theta power decreases than items strongly bound to temporal context. These findings expand upon lab-based studies by demonstrating the influence of real world contextual factors that underpin memory formation.

Introduction

Episodic memory refers to rich memories of personally experienced events. The details of these memories not only encompass the event itself but also the surrounding environmental setting, such as where and when the event occurred. Environmental context change can have a profound effect on episodic memory (Godden and Baddeley, 1975, Smith and Vela, 2001). Yet despite such context change being typical in day-to-day life, these changes are rarely incorporated in neuroscientific experiments examining episodic memory (often due to the need to conduct these experiments in magnetic resonance imaging [MRI] or magnetoencephalogram [MEG] suites). In these experiments, it is possible that mechanisms relating to the encoding of environmental context are supressed, as context remains largely consistent and therefore irrelevant to the task. This means that the neural correlates of episodic memory observed in the lab may provide an incomplete picture of episodic memory in the real world. While it is impossible to implement MEG or MRI in daily-life settings, progress has been made in the use of portable EEG outdoors (De Vos et al., 2014, Debener et al., 2012). Embracing these advances, we aimed to investigate the influence of vibrant real world environments on the electrophysiological correlates of episodic memory formation.

One of the most common approaches to studying episodic memory formation is the subsequent memory effect (SME). SMEs are the neural signature of successful memory formation, calculated by contrasting the neural activity at encoding which predicts later remembering with the activity that predicts later forgetting, hence isolating the activity unique to memory formation. Oscillatory SMEs are in part characterised by alpha and beta (8–12 Hz; 13–30 Hz) power decreases (Burke et al., 2015a, Fellner et al., 2013, Greenberg et al., 2015, Guderian et al., 2009, Hanslmayr et al., 2009, Meeuwissen et al., 2011, Noh et al., 2014, Weiss and Rappelsberger, 2000). Additionally, theta (3-7 Hz) has often been implicated in memory formation, although discrepancies exist in the literature with both theta power increases and decreases purported to underlie successful memory formation (Burke et al., 2015a, Burke et al., 2013, Fell et al., 2011, Guderian et al., 2009, Merkow et al., 2014, Noh et al., 2014, Nyhus and Curran, 2010, Staudigl and Hanslmayr, 2013). Nevertheless, beta power (13–20 Hz) decreases have been shown to reliably arise over task-relevant sensory regions during successful memory formation, a result attributed to information processing (Hanslmayr et al., 2012). Critically, a recent EEG-repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) study has demonstrated that beta power decreases are causally relevant to this process (Hanslmayr et al., 2014). The predictability of these beta power decreases provide a reliable benchmark to contrast with real world recordings in order to identify whether the typical lab-based SME is observable in a real world environment.

Beyond the validation of previous lab-based findings, portable EEG technology allows the investigation of aspects of episodic memory that only occur in their entirety in the real world, such as item-to-context binding. Item-to-context binding can be assessed via contextual clustering - a behavioural phenomenon in which several events are recalled together based on contextual similarities they share. Contextual clustering has often been demonstrated for events which share a similar temporal context (i.e. events that occurred at similar points in time; Howard and Kahana, 2002). However, contextual clustering is not solely restricted to the time domain (e.g. Long et al., 2015; Polyn et al., 2009). Of particular relevance here, studies have also demonstrated spatial contextual clustering where events that occurred in similar locations are recalled together (Copara et al., 2014; Miller et al., 2013a). To date, this phenomenon is predominantly studied in virtual reality where participants navigate low-resolution environments with limited visuospatial information. Vestibular and locomotion cues are distinctly lacking in many virtual reality experiments, yet lesion studies in rats have shown that these cues have been shown to have a profound impact on spatial navigation (Stackman and Herbert, 2002, Wallace et al., 2002). The absence of such cues may impede the development of a comprehensive spatial contextual representation.

It is also worth noting that a number of studies investigating spatial context have relied on random travel patterns to dissociate spatial and temporal contextual effects. A large number of random trajectories would inevitably mean that spatial and temporal context incidentally coincide at various points during the experiment, introducing a confounding variable and potentially trivial explanation of spatial clustering. In our experiment, we aimed to overcome this issue by using novel navigational paths that allow the observation of the independent contributions of temporal and spatial context to episodic memory formation.

On an oscillatory level, Long and Kahana (2015) demonstrated that temporal clustering correlates with gamma power increases in the left inferior frontal gyrus and the hippocampus during encoding. However, to the best of our knowledge, no other experiment has further investigated the relationship between neural oscillations at encoding and contextual clustering. Therefore, it remains unknown whether these patterns of activation are unique to subsequent temporal clustering or part of a more general associative mechanism. A priori assumptions follow that subsequent temporal and spatial clustering would encompass the medial temporal lobe (MTL) – the home of place and time cells (Eichenbaum, 2014, MacDonald et al., 2011, O’Keefe, 1976). Given the intimate relationship between place cells and theta band activity, it may also be plausible to suggest that the spatial clustering effect would be observable within the theta frequency (Burgess and O’Keefe, 2011, O’Keefe and Recce, 1993). In support of this, a recent virtual reality study found that subsequent memory for spatial contextual location was predicted by 'slow' theta power decreases (2-5Hz; Crespo-García et al., 2016)

It is of course important to identify potential oscillatory confounds that may arise in ‘real world’ paradigms that are not present in lab-based experiments. Numerous mobile brain body imaging (MoBI; Makeig et al., 2009) studies have demonstrated that both event-related potentials (ERPs) and oscillatory activity can be observed in moving participants (De Sanctis et al., 2014, Gramann et al., 2010, Gwin et al., 2010, Malcolm et al., 2015, Wagner et al., 2014). However, in relation to oscillatory activity, movement-related changes in power changes across the frequency spectrum (~1 Hz to 90 Hz). More specifically, in comparison to standing, walking can produce alpha/beta band power suppression and gamma power increases in sensorimotor areas (Castermans et al., 2014, Seeber et al., 2015, Seeber et al., 2014, Wagner et al., 2016, Wagner et al., 2012), whilst a loss of balance has been linked to an increase in theta band activity (Sipp et al., 2013). Importantly, these latter findings share spectral similarities with the SME. Therefore, in order to avoid potential contamination of these effects, the EEG data obtained is this experiment was acquired solely while participants were stationary.

In this experiment, we asked two questions; (1) can oscillatory lab-based episodic memory studies be validated in real-life settings? and (2) what are the neural correlates of temporal and spatial contextual clustering? Following a predefined route and led by the experimenter (see Fig. 1a and b), participants were presented with words to encode and associate with their current location (see Fig. 1c), a situation similar to remembering several text messages on the way to the supermarket. Participants were shown 4 lists of 20 words, where each list was presented on a spiralling route (see Fig. 1a). These spiralling routes were used to help disentangle the relationship between temporal and spatial context (see methods for details). After being shown a list of words, participants were removed from the environment and completed a free recall test. Finally, participants guided the experimenter to where they thought each recalled word was shown and the location was marked by GPS. We aimed to replicate the well-documented low to mid frequency power decreases (<30 Hz) in lab-based subsequent memory studies (e.g. Burke et al., 2015b; Hanslmayr and Staudigl, 2014), in particular the beta power decreases over the left inferior frontal gyrus elicited by verbal SME paradigms (Hanslmayr et al., 2011). Furthermore, we aimed to identify and dissociate the neural correlates of spatial and temporal contextual encoding. To this end, we contrasted neural activity associated with subsequent temporal clustering with that of subsequent spatial clustering. In short, this is the first experiment directly observing the neural correlates of episodic memory encoding in the real world, allowing both the validation of a large body of the episodic memory literature and the identification of how real world context affects the neural correlates of encoding.

Section snippets

Participants

29 University of Birmingham students (18–39 years, 69% female) were recruited through a participant pool and rewarded with financial compensation for participation. Nine participants were excluded from the sample due to issues in recording leading to insufficient trials (n=4), poor weather conditions leading to insufficient trials (n=2) or extreme performance in the task (recalled <15 items, or forgot <15 items across all blocks; n=3). Recording complications meant that one block was lost for 3

Behavioural results

On average, participants recalled 50.45% of each 20 word list and when attempting to locate where each word was presented, were on average 14.74 m away from the presentation location. Eighty percent of participants showed less temporal contextual error (i.e. more temporal contextual clustering) than spatial contextual error (see Fig. 3). A one-sample t-test revealed significantly greater spatial clustering than expected by chance, t(19)=−5.728, p<0.001, 95% CI [−2.155, −1.001], matching previous

Discussion

Here, we identified the oscillatory subsequent memory effect (SME) in a real-world environment. Moreover, we examined the influence of real world contextual factors (i.e. space) on episodic memory relative to contextual factors available within the lab (i.e. time). Participants donned a portable EEG setup and were presented with verbal stimuli on a tablet across the university campus. Each list was presented on a spiral path that disentangled temporal and spatial context. Successful memory

Acknowledgements

This work was supported by grants awarded to S.H. by Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft [Emmy Noether Programme Grant HA 5622/1-1]; and the European Research Council [Consolidator Grant Agreement 647954].

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