ArticleThe Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience2016
Episodic Memory Retrieval Functionally Relies on Very Rapid Reactivation of Sensory Information.
Article in The Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience, 2016. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 55 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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Who cites it
55 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 150 citations in OpenAlex.
- How Can Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation Be Used to Modulate Episodic Memory?: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis.Frontiers in psychology · 2019Pooled it
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- Condition-specific neural signatures of reactivation during post-retrieval rest: An EEG study.iScience · 2026Article
- Orienting selective attention within long-term contextual memories.Communications psychology · 2026Article
- Alpha Oscillations Track the Projection of Reactivated Memories into Conscious Awareness.The Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience · 2026Article
- Neural Patterns Reflect Shared Emotional History.The Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience · 2026Article
- Approximations Between Cultural-historical Psychology and Enactivism: Applications to Theories of Memory and Implications for Education.Integrative psychological & behavioral science · 2025Article
- Stimulation of the right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex reduces conflict-induced forgetting.Cerebral cortex (New York, N.Y. : 1991) · 2025Article
- Involuntary and voluntary memory retrieval relies on distinct neural representations and oscillatory processes.PLoS biology · 2025Article
- Brain mechanisms underlying the inhibitory control of thought.Nature reviews. Neuroscience · 2025Review
- The order of multisensory associative sequences is reinstated as context feature during successful recognition.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- Neural signatures of recollection are sensitive to memory quality and specific event features.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2025Article
- Fast-timescale hippocampal processes bridge between slowly unfurling neocortical states during memory search.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2025Article
- The neural basis of attentional selection in goal-directed memory retrieval.Scientific reports · 2024Article
- Temporal dynamics of oscillatory activity during nonlexical language decoding: Evidence from Morse code and magnetoencephalography.Human brain mapping · 2023Article
- Reduced hippocampal-cortical connectivity during memory suppression predicts the ability to forget unwanted memories.Cerebral cortex (New York, N.Y. : 1991) · 2023Article
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- Encoding contexts are incidentally reinstated during competitive retrieval and track the temporal dynamics of memory interference.Cerebral cortex (New York, N.Y. : 1991) · 2022Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
3 authors at 1 institution in 2 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Episodic memory retrieval is assumed to rely on the rapid reactivation of sensory information that was present during encoding, a process termed "ecphory." We investigated the functional relevance of this scarcely understood process in two experiments in human participants. We presented stimuli to the left or right of fixation at encoding, followed by an episodic memory test with centrally presented retrieval cues. This allowed us to track the reactivation of lateralized sensory memory traces during retrieval. Successful episodic retrieval led to a very early (∼100-200 ms) reactivation of lateralized alpha/beta (10-25 Hz) electroencephalographic (EEG) power decreases in the visual cortex contralateral to the visual field at encoding. Applying rhythmic transcranial magnetic stimulation to interfere with early retrieval processing in the visual cortex led to decreased episodic memory performance specifically for items encoded in the visual field contralateral to the site of stimulation. These results demonstrate, for the first time, that episodic memory functionally relies on very rapid reactivation of sensory information. SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT: Remembering personal experiences requires a "mental time travel" to revisit sensory information perceived in the past. This process is typically described as a controlled, relatively slow process. However, by using electroencephalography to measure neural activity with a high time resolution, we show that such episodic retrieval entails a very rapid reactivation of sensory brain areas. Using transcranial magnetic stimulation to alter brain function during retrieval revealed that this early sensory reactivation is causally relevant for conscious remembering. These results give first neural evidence for a functional, preconscious component of episodic remembering. This provides new insight into the nature of human memory and may help in the understanding of psychiatric conditions that involve the automatic intrusion of unwanted memories.
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