Tag and capture: how salient experiences target and rescue nearby events in memory

Joseph E Dunsmoor; Vishnu P Murty; David Clewett; Elizabeth A Phelps; Lila Davachi

doi:10.1016/j.tics.2022.06.009

Tag and capture: how salient experiences target and rescue nearby events in memory

Trends Cogn Sci. 2022 Sep;26(9):782-795. doi: 10.1016/j.tics.2022.06.009. Epub 2022 Jul 13.

Authors

Joseph E Dunsmoor¹, Vishnu P Murty², David Clewett³, Elizabeth A Phelps⁴, Lila Davachi⁵

Affiliations

¹ Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Dell Medical School, University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX, USA; Institute for Neuroscience, University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX, USA. Electronic address: joseph.dunsmoor@austin.utexas.edu.
² Department of Psychology, Temple University, Philadelphia, PA, USA.
³ Department of Psychology, University of California, Los Angeles, CA, USA.
⁴ Department of Psychology, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA.
⁵ Nathan Kline Institute, Orangeburg, NY, USA; Department of Psychology, Columbia University, New York, NY, USA. Electronic address: ld24@columbia.edu.

Abstract

The long-term fate of a memory is not exclusively determined by the events occurring at the moment of encoding. Research at the cellular, circuit, and behavioral levels is beginning to reveal how neurochemical activations in the moments surrounding an event can retroactively and proactively rescue weak memory for seemingly mundane experiences. We review emerging evidence showing enhancement of weakly formed memories encoded minutes to hours before or after a related motivationally relevant experience. We discuss proposed neurobiological mechanisms for strengthening weak memories formed in temporal proximity to a strong event, and how this knowledge could be leveraged to improve memory for information that is prone to forgetting.

Keywords: conditioning; emotion; episodic; memory; novelty; retroactive.

Publication types

Review

Abstract

Publication types

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