Intrinsic medial temporal lobe connectivity relates to individual differences in episodic autobiographical remembering

Abstract

People vary in how they remember the past: some recall richly detailed episodes; others more readily access the semantic features of events. The neural correlates of such trait-like differences in episodic and semantic remembering are unknown. We found that self-reported individual differences in how one recalls the past were related to predictable intrinsic connectivity patterns of the medial temporal lobe (MTL) memory system. A pattern of MTL connectivity to posterior brain regions supporting visual-perceptual processing (occipital/parietal cortices) was related to the endorsement of episodic memory-based remembering (recalling spatiotemporal event information), whereas MTL connectivity to inferior and middle prefrontal cortical regions was related to the endorsement of semantic memory-based remembering (recalling facts). These findings suggest that the tendency to engage in episodic autobiographical remembering is associated with accessing and constructing detailed images of a past event in memory, while the tendency to engage in semantic autobiographical remembering is associated with organizing and integrating higher-order conceptual information. More broadly, these findings suggest that differences in how people naturally use memory are instantiated though distinct patterns of MTL functional connectivity.