Medial Prefrontal Activity Predicts Memory for Self

“…frontal gyrus and/or anterior cingulate cortex) and posterior medial cortex (posterior cingulate cortex and/or precuneus; see Johnson et al., 2006; Macrae, Moran, Heatherton, Banfield, & Kelley, 2004; Ochsner et al., 2005, for reviews of findings focusing on medial frontal areas and see Cavanna &…”

“gave their subjects a surprise recognition test of trait words, some of which subjects previously judged according to their self-relevanc”

“…on own vs. other's personality/physical traits Mental Lou et al. (2004) PET 13 Retrieval of personality trait adjectives Self vs. other Visual Macrae et al. (2004) fMRI 22 Personality adjectives Self vs. non-self descriptive/remember vs. forgotten Visual Ochsner et al. (2004) fMRI 24…”

“In addition, in two studies (Fossati et al. 2004, Macrae et al. 2004) that examined the effects of self-referential encoding on memory , it was observed that greater MPFC activity during self-referential encoding is associated with better memory performance for this information (for an analogous…”

“When tasked with imagining another place or time (Addis et al. 2012), or to think about themselves (Kelley et al. 2002, Macrae et al. 2004, Mitchell et al. 2006), regions in the DMN increase their activity.”

“This region is also involved in representing self-knowledge [Macrae et al., 2004] or self-referential processing [D’Argembeau et al.”

“…earlier studies that have implicated this region in self-referential processing (Gusnard et al., 2001; Johnson et al., 2002; Kelley et al., 2002; Macrae et al., 2004; Schmitz et al., 2004; Vogeley et al., 2004; Zysset et al., 2002)—was more strongly engaged during judgments about the potential…”

“Kelley et al. (2002), in an event-related fMRI study, have shown selective engagement during self-referential processing, while Macrae et al. (2004) proposed that the recruitment of this region may explain memory enhancement of materials that trigger self-referential mental activity.”

“Results revealed that activity in medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) predicted both subsequent memory performance and judgments of selfrelevance (Macrae et al. 2004).”

“This means that differences in activation with respect to that state may not be clearly interpretable in terms of specific underlying psychological processes (cf. Stark & Squire, 2001), and could explain why deactivations for self-referential or social-cognitive processing are not always found in comparison to the res…”

“Johnson et al., 2002; Kelley et al., 2002; Macrae et al., 2004; Schmitz et al., 2004;”

“Moreover, the amPFC (and to a certain extent, the PCC) may regulate the process of self-reference memory influences (Macrae et al., 2004) by activating responses to self-relevant information, which linearly increases with the self-associated features of certain stimuli (Moran et al.”

“…medial cortex (posterior cingulate cortex and precuneus), areas that are associated with self-referential processing (see Cavanna & Trimble, 2006; Macrae et al., 2004; Northoff et al., 2006; Ochsner et al., 2005; Vogt & Laureys, 2005, for reviews) and “self-projection” tasks such as envisioning…”

“The simulation proposal of Mitchell et al. in fact arises from previous reports of vmPFC involvement in self-referential thinking when reporting one’s own ‘‘internal’’ states [Kelley et al., 2002; Macrae et al., 2004] or when adopting a first-person perspective [Vogeley et al., 2001].”

“Consistent with this view, research has shown increased activity in the medial PFC, a key component of the default-mode network, is not detrimental, but beneficial, to encoding self-referential information (Macrae et al., 2004) or episodes of social cognition (Harvey et al.”

“…Wagner & Shannon 2005 ); decision-making (Fleck et al. 2006); emotional processing (Maddock 1999); self-referential processing (Kelley et al. 2002; Macrae & Moran 2004); social interactions (Iacoboni et al. 2004); and mental state attribution (i.e. theory of mind; Saxe & Kanwisher 2003; Frith &…”

“…words describe the self as compared to a non-close other (George Bush), but both types of judgments recruit other regions involved in memory retrieval, such as left inferior prefrontal cortex (PFC), to the same degree as the other-referential judgments (Kelley et al., 2002; Macrae et al., 2004).”

“For instance, when information is encoded in a self-referential fashion – when people focus on how information relates to them and on how information makes them feel – there are distinct mechanisms engaged which boost the strength of the encoded memory and may make it more resilient to forgetting (Kelley et al., 2002;…”

“For example, when individuals are asked to process stimuli in regard to themselves (e.g., deciding whether words would describe them), memory is enhanced as compared to when the items are processed for meaning, but not in relation to the self (Rogers et al., 1977 [#71]; Macrae et al., 2004 [#54]).”

“…or someone famous, while presented with trait words (D'Argembeau et al., 2007; Gutchess et al., 2007; Heatherton et al., 2006; Kelley et al., 2002; Macrae et al., 2004; Ochsner et al., 2005; Schmitz et al., 2004; Schmitz et al., 2006; Zhu et al., 2007), trait 2 The terms ventral and dorsal…”

“MPFC activity has been noted in many studies in which task demands encourage introspection or selfreflection (Macrae et al., 2004; Johnson et al., 2002; Kelley et al., 2002; Gusnard et al., 2001; Craik et al., 1999).”

“, 2004), and self and otherperson reflection (Gusnard et al., 2001; Johnson et al., 2002; Kelley et al., 2002; Kjaer et al., 2002; Fossati et al., 2003; Lou et al., 2004; Macrae et al., 2004; D’Argembeau et al., 2005; Mitchell et al., 2005a,b; Ochsner et al., 2005; Moran et al., 2006) (for a meta-analysis of self stud…”

“W. (1988). The content and organisation of autobiographical”

“Within the typically developing brain, both self-referential cognitive processing and mentalizing are consistently localized to neural processing in cortical midline structures (CMS) of the brain such as the medial prefrontal cortex (MPFC) and posterior cingulate/precuneus (PC)[34,35,36,37,38,39] (see Figure 1).”

“Macrae et al. (2004a) noted that a frustrating feature of this debate was that all theories made the same behavioral prediction (e.g., superior memory for material Annu Rev Psychol.”

“More generally, further investigation may be able to identify distinct regions whose activity predicts accuracy for different types of social cognitive judgments, which has been the case in subsequent memory research, for example, where the activity of different brain regions independently predicts successful encoding…”

“For instance, several studies have investigated the brain regions recruited when people evaluate the self-descriptiveness of adjectives or sentences describing personality traits (Heatherton et al., 2006; Ochsner et al., 2005; Lieberman et al., 2004; Lou et al., 2004; Macrae et al., 2004; Schmitz et al., 2004; Fossati…”

“, 2006), and is greater at both encoding (Macrae et al., 2004) and retrieval (Fossati et al.”

“…in earlier studies of self-referential thought, in which participants were instructed to report on their own, first-person mental states, preferences or personality traits ( Johnson et al. 2002; Kelley et al. 2002; Macrae et al. 2004; Schmitz et al. 2004; Vogeley et al. 2004; Moran et al. 2006).”

“The present study sought to determine whether the MPFC activity observed during self-reference tasks in previous work (Craik et al., 1999; Johnson et al., 2002; Kelley et al., 2002; Macrae et al., 2004b; Ochsner et al., 2004; Schmitz et al., 2004) would extend to the judgments about others if the target was a personal…”

“Traits (Figure 3) (continued) Macrae et al. (2004) Greater activation for words judged to be selfdescriptive Medial PFC Medial PFC”

“As noted in the introduction, activity in various regions of medial anterior and posterior cortex has been associated with self-referential processing (e.g. Macrae et al., 2004; Ochsner et al., 2005; Vogt and Laureys, 2005; Cavanna and Trimble, 2006).”

“MPFC activity in the context of a mentalizing task has been studied by many researchers (e.g., Berthoz et al., 2002a,b; Brunet et al., 2000; Castelli et al., 2000, 2002; Ferstl and von Cramon, 2002; Fletcher et al., 1995; Goel et al., 1995; Gallagher et al., 2000; Macrae et al., 2004; Ochsner et al., 2004; Schultz et…”

“This lack of correspondence between cultural priming and agreement with self-descriptions at a behavioral level in the current study is somewhat surprising given prior studies showing a positive association between self-relevant neural activity within MPFC and behavioral assays, such as enhanced recognition for self-r…”

“…large portion of the variance in aMPFC activity during introspective tasks (Andrews-Hanna et al., 2010a), and aMPFC activity increases with perceived self-relevancy (Macrae et al., 2004; Mitchell et al., 2006; Moran et al., 2006, 2009; Benoit et al., 2010; Krienen et al., 2010; Denny et al., 2012).”

“and the self-reference effect of memory.(46) The hypoactivity of schizophrenic patients in vmPFC during restingstate could be related their deficits in self-referential source memory.”

“…trait adjectives that describe oneself, involves similar brain regions to those underlying the attribution of mental states to others, in particular dorsal mPFC (Happé, 2003; Johnson et al., 2002; Kelley et al., 2002; Kampe et al., 2003; Kjaer et al., 2002; Lou et al., 2004; Macrae et al., 2004).”

“The MPFC is particularly interesting because it has also been implicated in processing other forms of self-referent information (31,32).”

“Medial pFC is implicated in a number of different systems, including emotional processing (Phan et al., 2003), social cognition (Amodio & Frith, 2006), self-referential mental activity (Gusnard, Akbudak, Shulman, & Raichle, 2001), and memory for self ( Macrae, Moran, Heatherton, Banfield, & Kelley, 2004 ), and belongs…”

“Indeed, the mPFC appears to be associated with the awareness and regulation of one’s negative mood (Macrae et al., 2004; Ochsner et al., 2004; Lane et al., 1997).”

“In addition, several studies have consistently associated MPFC activity with the utilization of selfreferential stimuli (e.g., Macrae, Moran, Heatherton, Banfield, & Kelley, 2004; Ochsner et al., 2004; Kelley et al., 2002; Vogeley, Bussfeld, et al., 2001).”

“The ventral portion of mPFC commonly responds during self-evaluation (Kelley et al., 2002; Macrae et al., 2004), and selfevaluation processes are automatically triggered by social exclusion (Leary et al., 1995; Williams, 2007).”

“We also observed, however, that in the condition of decreasing negative affect, rumination predicted decreases in bilateral medial prefrontal area BA 10 and adjacent anterior cingulate areas BA 24 and 32. These medial frontal areas have been implicated in emotion processing (Christoff, Ream, Geddes, & Gabrieli, 2003;…”

“In particular, the vmPFC is not only recruited during tasks that require participants to introspect about their own mental experience or feelings (Johnson et al., 2002; Kelley et al., 2002; Macrae et al., 2004; Zysset et al., 2002), but also associated with emotion regulation (Lane, 2008; Ochsner and Gross, 2005; Simp…”

“The dorsal MPFC is a region associated not only with understanding the beliefs and intentions of others, but also with self-relevant attributions, feelings and memories (Gusnard et al., 2001; Vogeley et al., 2001; Kelley et al., 2002; Macrae et al., 2004; Ochsner et al., 2004).”

“A series of previous experiments has associated MPFC with selfreferential processing (D'Argembeau et al., 2007; Gutchess et al., 2007, 2010;Macrae et al., 2004), and it has been hypothesized to be important for assessing the self-relevance of any type of information or representation (Northoff et al.”

“This region was not anatomically near to regions of frontal cortex typically associated with self-identification or selfprocessing (e.g. Macrae et al., 2004).”

“This contrast also showed signal in the dorsal portion of the ACC, a region that is activated when subjects judge the self-relevance of words.(21) It does not appear surprising that judgments of self-relevance % non–self-relevance and judgments of truth % falsity would invoke similar regions of processing because both…”

“Manipulations involving the retrieval and judgement of self-relevant personality traits (D'Argembeau et al., 2007; Johnson et al., 2002; Kelley et al., 2002; Kjaer et al., 2002; Lou et al., 2004; Macrae et al., 2004; Moran et al., 2006), differences in viewpoint perspective (e.”

“…the MPFC with autobiographical memory retrieval (Gilboa, 2004; Svoboda et al., 2006), retrieval of self-referential episodes (Zysset et al., 2002), retrieval of selfgenerated versus externally presented words (Vinogradov et al., 2008), and the self-reference effect of memory (Macrae et al., 2004).”

“Because these regions have been implicated in self-referential processing (Northoff et al., 2006; Macrae et al., 2004; Kelley et al., 2002), this finding suggests that the mnemonic enhancement that older adults (but not young adults) display for positive information may result from older adults’ tendency to process po…”

“Furthermore, previous task-related studies reported the SRN to be related self-knowledge (Macrae et al. 2004), self-material (Northoff and Bermpohl 2004) and SRN processing (D'Argembeau et al. 2005; for a recent metaanalysis see Northoff et al. 2006 ).”

“The coordinates refer to the Montreal Neurological Institute stereotaxic space. al., 1980, 1989; Wyer et al., 1984; Srull and Wyer, 1989; but see Macrae et al., 2004).”

“In the present study, moment-to-moment reports of state self-esteem mapped on more closely to regions involved in distressing emotional experience (dACC, anterior insula), whereas changes in session-level self-esteem (which could be conceptualized as a more retrospective assessment) relied on regions involved in self-…”

“Moreover, MPFC activity correlates with successful memory for information processed in a self-referential manner [ 18 ], suggesting that this region supports the welldocumented mnemonic benefits of linking information to the self-concept [19].”

“The locus of VMPFC activity under Western culture priming is consistent with that observed in previous neuroimaging studies of Western participants (Kelley et al., 2002; Macrae et al., 2004; Moran, Macrae, Heatherton, Wyland, & Kelley, 2006; Zhu et al., 2007).”

“, posterior cingulate cortex, precuneus) show increased activity during self-referential processing (Johnson et al., 2002; Fossati et al., 2003; Macrae et al., 2004; Ochsner et al., 2005; Vogt and Laureys, 2005; Amodio and Frith, 2006; Johnson et al., 2006; Northoff et al., 2006).”

“2004), and retrieve autobiographical memories of past events (Macrae et al. 2004).”

“…of stimuli (Northoff et al., 2006; Han and Northoff, 2009) since trait words rated high vs low in self-relevance increased mPFC activity (Moran et al., 2006) and mPFC activity correlated with memory performances on recall of self-related trait words (Macrae et al., 2004; Ma and Han, 2011).”

“, 2006), emotional processing (Maddock, 1999), self-referential processing (Kelley et al., 2002; Macrae et al., 2004), social interactions (Iacoboni et al.”

“In addition, recent neuroimaging work ( Macrae, Moran, Heatherton, Banfield, & Kelley, 2004 ) has shown that memory for self-referential adjectives is supported by medial prefrontal cortex (PFC) regions implicated in self-referential processing but not usually recruited during more standard elaborative encoding tasks…”

“, 2013) and measures that distinguish the self from others (Macrae et al., 2004).”

“While it is possible that self-referencing is not heavily cognitively demanding, the wide extent of encoding deficits with age (Kausler, 1994) and the finding that medial prefrontal cortex is implicated in successful encoding (Macrae et al., 2004) make it likely that the availability of cognitive resources plays at le…”

“For example, different neural localizations are found when participants are asked to process traits for self-descriptiveness (i.e., semantic-based memory judgments; Kelley et al., 2002; Macrae et al., 2004) than when asked to perform tasks that entail retrieval of personal events from episodic memory (e.”