The core episodic simulation network dissociates as a function of subjective experience and objective content

• Published in: Neuropsychologia Vol. 136; p. 107263
• Main Authors: Thakral, Preston P., Madore, Kevin P., Schacter, Daniel L.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: England Elsevier Ltd 01.01.2020
• Subjects: Adult; Autobiographical interview; Cues; Female; Hippocampus; Hippocampus - diagnostic imaging; Hippocampus - physiology; Humans; Imagination; Imagination - physiology; Magnetic Resonance Imaging; Male; Memory, Episodic; Mental Recall - physiology; Nerve Net - diagnostic imaging; Nerve Net - physiology; Parietal cortex; Parietal Lobe - diagnostic imaging; Parietal Lobe - physiology; Recall; Recollection; Thinking - physiology; Vividness; Young Adult; Imagination; Recollection; Parietal cortex; Recall; Autobiographical interview; Vividness; Hippocampus
• ISSN: 0028-3932; 1873-3514
• DOI: 10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2019.107263

Episodic simulation – the mental construction of a possible future event – has been consistently associated with enhanced activity in a set of neural regions referred to as the core network. In the current functional neuroimaging study, we assessed whether members of the core network are differentially associated with the subjective experience of future events (i.e., vividness) versus the objective content comprising those events (i.e., the amount of episodic details). During scanning, participants imagined future events in response to object cues. On each trial, participants rated the subjective vividness associated with each future event. Participants completed a post-scan interview where they viewed each object cue from the scanner and verbally reported whatever they had thought about. For imagined events, we quantified the number of episodic or internal details in accordance with the Autobiographical Interview (i.e., who, what, when, and where details of each central event). To test whether core network regions are differentially associated with subjective experience or objective episodic content, imagined future events were sorted as a function of their rated vividness or the amount of episodic detail. Univariate analyses revealed that some regions of the core network were uniquely sensitive to the vividness of imagined future events, including the hippocampus (i.e., high > low vividness), whereas other regions, such as the lateral parietal cortex, were sensitive to the amount of episodic detail in the event (i.e., high > low episodic details). The present results indicate that members of the core network support distinct episodic simulation-related processes. •Episodic simulation is the ability to pre-experience hypothetical future episodes.•Episodic simulation associated with neural activity in the ‘core network’.•We identified core network regions associated with vividness.•We identified core network regions associated with the amount of episodic details.•The core network dissociates across subjective and objective episodic processing.