Our review "Brain activity patterns underlying memory confidence" just got accepted in European Journal of Neuroscience

Created in March 22, 2022

2022

When you retrieve a memory, this is associated with a certain level of confidence in the accuracy of this memory. We have probably all experienced a time when a true memory felt made up, while a fake memory felt so real. In the overview paper we just published we wanted to investigate the activity patterns in the brain that are related to this subjective feeling of confidence we have in our memories. To do this, we focused on eight brain areas that are related to memory and documented their activity patterns related to confidence. In the lab, confidence is often measured on a scale, going from “very sure I recognize this” to “very sure I do not recognize this”, with guesses in the middle. Using this scale we could see how brain activity levels different as we moved along this memory confidence scale.

When looking at the published literature we could summarize the following findings:

  • Activity in the brain area close to the temple, called the Medial Temporal Lobe (MTL), increased when people became more confident in their memories. We believe that this is due to the role the MTL plays in the storing and retrieval of information in the brain.
  • Activity in the frontal brain area, called the Prefrontal Cortex (PFC), showed no consistent relationship with memory confidence. We believe this is because the PFC is important to guide and control memory processes, but that this support is not always successful. This in turn leads to varying results across studies.
  • Activity in a more posterior brain area, called the Posterior Parietal Cortex (PPC), could either increase or decrease with increasing memory confidence. Specifically, in the PPC there is a subregion mainly involved in unconfident memories and a subregion mainly involved in confident memories.

Given that memory complaints can start with just a reduction in memory confidence, knowing more about the brain processes involved is essential to help people with memory complaints.