Biology subjects

Kensinger, E. A.

Publications and source records attributed to Kensinger, E. A..

6 recordsLinked to original sources

bioRxiv2026

Remembered event features shape default mode network engagement during emotional memory recall

Episodic memory involves reconstruction of past events through integration of multiple types of information, including perceptual details, narrative content, and emotional tone. The default mode network (DMN) is a set of regions thought to support episodic retrieval, yet it remains unclear how distinct subnetworks contribute to recall of these different memory features. Here, we examined how DMN subnetworks support and represent memory for naturalistic emotional events. Male and female human participants encoded short news videos that varied in emotional valence and recalled them in response to neutral cues during functional MRI scanning. Videos were again recalled one day later and memories were scored for perceptual and narrative details. Activity in the dorsomedial subnetwork was related to the emotional valence of the memory, while activity in the medial temporal subnetwork was associated with the number of perceptual details recalled. Multivariate pattern analyses further revealed that the medial temporal subnetwork exhibited greater pattern stability across recalls when recalling more perceptual details, while stability in the dorsomedial and core subnetworks was tied to emotional remembering. Our findings suggest that the dorsomedial subnetwork provides an affective frame for a memory, while the medial temporal subnetwork contributes perceptual specificity. These results demonstrate that the contents of memory retrieval shape network engagement during emotional recall, providing insight into how the brain reconstructs complex real-world experiences. Significance StatementHow do we remember the emotional tone of an event versus its visual details? This study examines how distinct subnetworks within the brains default mode network (DMN) contribute to remembering different features of memory. While the medial temporal subnetwork is connected to retrieving the perceptual details of past events, the dorsomedial subnetwork supports recall of the emotional tone. Furthermore, patterns of activity in the medial temporal subnetwork are more stable when recalling more perceptually rich memories, while stability in the dorsomedial subnetwork is tied to emotional remembering. These findings suggest that the default mode network flexibly responds to different kinds of memory features, supporting the reconstruction of rich emotional memories from complex real-world experiences.

neuroscience↗

bioRxiv2025

Aging and false memories: Comparing effects of item-relatedness and list position

Evidence from classic serial position curves suggests that semantic false memories traditionally arise from presumed long-term memory stores whereas phonological false memories arise from presumed short-term memory stores. However, recent research with younger adults challenges this distinction, finding semantic and phonological false memories across memory stores and list positions (Atkins & Reuter-Lorenz, 2008; Dimsdale-Zucker et al., 2018; Flegal et al., 2010). The present study tested whether semantic and phonological false memories reflect distinct or shared underlying mechanisms and whether these patterns differ with age. Younger (YAs) and older (OAs) adults completed a modified Deese-Roediger-McDermott paradigm that manipulated semantic and phonological similarity across list position. Although OAs recalled fewer items than YAs, both groups generated more phonological than semantic false memories. Notably, list position did not influence false memories in either YAs or OAs, suggesting false memory generation is driven by list composition rather than putative memory store. These findings challenge traditional views of memory organization by revealing shared cognitive processes, which transcend traditional memory system distinctions that underlie semantic and phonological false memories.

neuroscience↗

bioRxiv2021

Investigation of the Stress and Sleep Physiology Correlates of Next-Day Memory for Details of a Social Stressor Testing Environment

Despite evidence which demonstrates that psychosocial stress interacts with sleep to modulate memory, research that has examined next-day memory for the stressful environment itself has not accounted for post-stressor sleep. Here, participants completed the Trier Social Stress Test or a matched control task with psychophysiological monitoring and stress hormone assays. After a 24-hour delay that included overnight polysomnographically-recorded sleep, memory for objects in the testing room was assessed by having participants draw the testing room from the previous day from memory. As expected, stressed participants mounted greater psychophysiological and stress hormone responses to the stressor than participants in the control condition. However, there was only weak evidence that stress reactivity and post-encoding sleep interacted to modulate memory for testing room details. Instead, NREM sleep physiology on the night following testing room encoding was positively associated with memory for testing room details, though this association occurred in the control, but not stressed, participants.

neuroscience↗

bioRxiv2020

Slow oscillation-spindle coupling impairs emotional memory consolidation following stress

Both stress and sleep enhance emotional memory. They also interact, with the largest effect of sleep on emotional memory being seen when stress occurs shortly before or after encoding. Slow wave sleep (SWS) is critical for long-term episodic memory, facilitated by the temporal coupling of slow oscillations and sleep spindles. Prior work in humans has shown these associations for neutral information in non-stressed participants. Whether coupling interacts with stress to facilitate emotional memory formation is unknown. Here, we addressed this question by reanalyzing an existing dataset of 64 individuals. Participants underwent a psychosocial stressor (32) or comparable control (32) prior to the encoding of 150-line drawings of neutral, positive, and negative images. All participants slept overnight with polysomnography, before being given a surprise memory test the following day. In the stress group, time spent in SWS was positively correlated with memory for images of all valences. Results were driven by those who showed a high cortisol response to the stressor, compared to low responders. The amount of slow oscillation-spindle coupling during SWS was negatively associated with neutral and emotional memory in the stress group only. The association with emotional memory was significantly stronger than for neutral memory within the stress group. These results suggest that stress around the time of initial memory formation impacts the relationship between slow wave sleep and memory.

neuroscience↗

bioRxiv2019

Early Reactivation of Emotion in ERPs to Neutral Retrieval Cues

Memory retrieval is thought to involve the reactivation of encoding processes. Previous fMRI work has indicated that reactivation processes are modulated by the residual effects of the prior emotional encoding context; different spatial patterns emerge during retrieval of memories previously associated with negative compared to positive or neutral context. Other research suggests that ERP indicators of memory retrieval processes, like the left parietal old/new effect, can also be modulated by emotion, but the spatial distribution and temporal dynamics of these effects is unclear. In the current study, we examined when emotion affects memory reactivation and whether that timing reflects processes that come before and may guide successful retrieval or post-recollection recovery of emotional episodic detail. While recording EEG, participants (N = 25) viewed neutral words paired with negative, positive or neutral pictures during encoding, followed by a recognition test for the words. Analyses focused on ERPs during the recognition test. In line with prior ERP studies, we found an early positive-going parietally distributed effect starting around 200 ms post retrieval-cue onset. This effect emerged for words that had been encoded in an emotional compared to neutral context (no valence differences), before the general old/new effect. This emotion-dependent effect occurred in an early time window, suggesting emotion-related reactivation is a precursor to successful recognition.

neuroscience↗

bioRxiv2018

Predicting age from cortical structure across the lifespan

Despite inter-individual differences in cortical structure, cross-sectional and longitudinal studies have demonstrated a large degree of population-level consistency in age-related differences in brain morphology. The present study assessed how accurately an individual's age could be predicted by estimates of cortical morphology, comparing a variety of structural measures, including thickness, gyrification, and fractal dimensionality. Structural measures were calculated across up to seven different parcellation approaches, ranging from 1 region to 1000 regions. The age-prediction framework was trained using morphological measures obtained from T1-weighted MRI volumes collected from multiple sites, yielding a training dataset of 1056 healthy adults, aged 18-97. Age predictions were calculated using a machine-learning approach that incorporated non-linear differences over the lifespan. In two independent, held-out test samples, age predictions had a median error of 6-7 years. Age predictions were best when using a combination of cortical metrics, both thickness and fractal dimensionality. Overall, the results reveal that age-related differences in brain structure are systematic enough to enable reliable age prediction based on metrics of cortical morphology.

neuroscience↗