Even though we might be certain we remember something exactly the way we experienced it, this is not always true. Episodic memories can change on the basis of new experiences, potentially allowing us to make valid predictions in the future. Such changes can be triggered by prediction errors, which arise when there is a mismatch between what we remember, and therefore expect, and what we experience. In a new article published in the “Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience”, FOR 2812 members Sophie Siestrup, Benjamin Jainta and Ricarda Schubotz, in cooperation with members Oliver Wolf and Sen Cheng, investigated the neuronal signatures of different types of episodic prediction errors and their impact on episodic recall. The researchers targeted two defining aspects of episodic memories, their sequential structure and content, and demonstrated that unpredicted changes regarding the different types of episodic information not only triggered highly specific brain activation, but also led to memory changes. These findings contribute to our understanding of how memories can be modified and highlight the importance of the interplay between memory and prediction.

The full article can be found here: https://direct.mit.edu/jocn/article/34/7/1287/110883/What-Happened-When-Cerebral-Processing-of-Modified