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The Neural Architecture of Music-Evoked Autobiographical Memories| old_uid | 5541 |
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| title | The Neural Architecture of Music-Evoked Autobiographical Memories |
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| start_date | 2008/11/07 |
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| schedule | 11h |
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| online | no |
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| location_info | amphi G2 |
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| summary | The medial prefrontal cortex is regarded as a region of the brain that supports self-referential processes. These include the integration of sensory information with knowledge about oneself and with ongoing affective states, and the retrieval of autobiographical information. In this study, I used fMRI and a novel procedure for eliciting autobiographical memories with excerpts of popular music that were likely to be encountered during one’s extended childhood, to test the hypothesis that music and autobiographical memories are integrated in the medial prefrontal cortex (MPFC). Dorsal regions of the MPFC (BA 8/9) were shown to respond parametrically to the degree of autobiographical salience experienced over the course of individual 30 s excerpts. The entire extent of the MPFC responded more strongly if the song was familiar, autobiographically salient and elicited positive affect. Moreover, the MPFC, primarily in dorsal regions, also responded on a second, faster, timescale in that it tracked the signature movements (melodies and chord progressions) of the musical excerpts through tonal space. These results suggest that the dorsal MPFC mediates the linking of music and memories when we experience salient episodic memories that are triggered by a familiar song from our personal past. MPFC acted in concert with lateral prefrontal cortex and posterior cortices, both in terms of tonality tracking and overall responsiveness to positively valenced and autobiographically salient songs. These findings corroborate and extend results of previous autobiographical memory research by demonstrating the spontaneous activation of an autobiographical memory network in a naturalistic task with low retrieval demands. |
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| responsibles | Grimault |
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