Recalled through this day but forgotten next week?-retrieval activity predicts durability of partly consolidated memories.

Even partly consolidated memories can be forgotten given sufficient time, but the brain activity associated with durability of episodic memory at different time scales remains unclear. Here, we aimed to identify brain activity associated with retrieval of partly consolidated episodic memories that continued to be remembered in the future. Forty-nine younger (20 to 38 years; 25 females) and 43 older adults (60 to 80 years, 25 females) were scanned with functional magnetic resonance imaging during associative memory retrieval 12 h post-encoding. Twelve hours is sufficient to allow short-term synaptic consolidation as well as early post-encoding replay to initiate memory consolidation. Successful memory trials were classified into durable and transient source memories based on responses from a memory test ~6 d post-encoding. Results demonstrated that successful retrieval of future durable vs. transient memories was supported by increased activity in a medial prefrontal and ventral parietal area. Individual differences in activation as well as the subjective vividness of memories during encoding were positively related to individual differences in memory performance after 6 d. The results point to a unique and novel aspect of brain activity supporting long-term memory, in that activity during retrieval of memories even after 12 h of consolidation contains information about potential for long-term durability.

Sustained upregulation of widespread hippocampal-neocortical coupling following memory encoding.

Systems consolidation of new experiences into lasting episodic memories involves hippocampal-neocortical interactions. Evidence of this process is already observed during early post-encoding rest periods, both as increased hippocampal coupling with task-relevant perceptual regions and reactivation of stimulus-specific patterns following intensive encoding tasks. We investigate the spatial and temporal characteristics of these hippocampally anchored post-encoding neocortical modulations. Eighty-nine adults participated in an experiment consisting of interleaved memory task- and resting-state periods. We observed increased post-encoding functional connectivity between hippocampus and individually localized neocortical regions responsive to stimuli encountered during memory encoding. Post-encoding modulations were manifested as a nearly system-wide upregulation in hippocampal coupling with all major functional networks. The configuration of these extensive modulations resembled hippocampal-neocortical interaction patterns estimated from active encoding operations, suggesting hippocampal post-encoding involvement exceeds perceptual aspects. Reinstatement of encoding patterns was not observed in resting-state scans collected 12 h later, nor when using other candidate seed regions. The similarity in hippocampal functional coupling between online memory encoding and offline post-encoding rest suggests reactivation in humans involves a spectrum of cognitive processes engaged during the experience of an event. There were no age effects, suggesting that upregulation of hippocampal-neocortical connectivity represents a general phenomenon seen across the adult lifespan.

Hippocampal-cortical functional connectivity during memory encoding and retrieval.

Memory encoding and retrieval are critical sub-processes of episodic memory. While the hippocampus is involved in both, less is known about its connectivity with the neocortex during memory processing in humans. This is partially due to variations in demands in common memory tasks, which inevitably recruit cognitive processes other than episodic memory. Conjunctive analysis of data from different tasks with the same core elements of encoding and retrieval can reduce the intrusion of patterns related to subsidiary perceptual and cognitive processing. Leveraging data from two large-scale functional resonance imaging studies with different episodic memory tasks (514 and 237 participants), we identified hippocampal-cortical networks active during memory tasks. Whole-brain functional connectivity maps were similar during resting state, encoding, and retrieval. Anterior and posterior hippocampus had distinct connectivity profiles, which were also stable across resting state and memory tasks. When contrasting encoding and retrieval connectivity, conjunctive encoding-related connectivity was sparse. During retrieval hippocampal connectivity was increased with areas known to be active during recollection, including medial prefrontal, inferior parietal, and parahippocampal cortices. This indicates that the stable functional connectivity of the hippocampus along its longitudinal axis is superposed by increased functional connectivity with the recollection network during retrieval, while auxiliary encoding connectivity likely reflects contextual factors.

Reduced Hippocampal-Striatal Interactions during Formation of Durable Episodic Memories in Aging.

Encoding of durable episodic memories requires cross-talk between the hippocampus and multiple brain regions. Changes in these hippocampal interactions could contribute to age-related declines in the ability to form memories that can be retrieved after extended time intervals. Here we tested whether hippocampal-neocortical- and subcortical functional connectivity (FC) observed during encoding of durable episodic memories differed between younger and older adults. About 48 younger (20-38 years; 25 females) and 43 older (60-80 years; 25 females) adults were scanned with fMRI while performing an associative memory encoding task. Source memory was tested ~20 min and ~6 days postencoding. Associations recalled after 20 min but later forgotten were classified as transient, whereas memories retained after long delays were classified as durable. Results demonstrated that older adults showed a reduced ability to form durable memories and reduced hippocampal-caudate FC during encoding of durable memories. There was also a positive relationship between hippocampal-caudate FC and higher memory performance among the older adults. No reliable age group differences in durable memory-encoding activity or hippocampal-neocortical connectivity were observed. These results support the classic theory of striatal alterations as one cause of cognitive decline in aging and highlight that age-related changes in episodic memory extend beyond hippocampal-neocortical connections.

Whole-brain connectivity during encoding: age-related differences and associations with cognitive and brain structural decline.

There is a limited understanding of age differences in functional connectivity during memory encoding. In the present study, a sample of cognitively healthy adult participants (n = 488, 18-81 years), a subsample of whom had longitudinal cognitive and brain structural data spanning on average 8 years back, underwent functional magnetic resonance imaging while performing an associative memory encoding task. We investigated (1) age-related differences in whole-brain connectivity during memory encoding; (2) whether encoding connectivity patterns overlapped with the activity signatures of specific cognitive processes, and (3) whether connectivity associated with memory encoding related to longitudinal brain structural and cognitive changes. Age was associated with lower intranetwork connectivity among cortical networks and higher internetwork connectivity between networks supporting higher level cognitive functions and unimodal and attentional areas during encoding. Task-connectivity between mediotemporal and posterior parietal regions-which overlapped with areas involved in mental imagery-was related to better memory performance only in older age. The connectivity patterns supporting memory performance in older age reflected preservation of thickness of the medial temporal cortex. The results are more in accordance with a maintenance rather than a compensation account.

The Functional Foundations of Episodic Memory Remain Stable Throughout the Lifespan.

It has been suggested that specific forms of cognition in older age rely largely on late-life specific mechanisms. Here instead, we tested using task-fMRI (n = 540, age 6-82 years) whether the functional foundations of successful episodic memory encoding adhere to a principle of lifespan continuity, shaped by developmental, structural, and evolutionary influences. We clustered regions of the cerebral cortex according to the shape of the lifespan trajectory of memory activity in each region so that regions showing the same pattern were clustered together. The results revealed that lifespan trajectories of memory encoding function showed a continuity through life but no evidence of age-specific mechanisms such as compensatory patterns. Encoding activity was related to general cognitive abilities and variations of grey matter as captured by a multi-modal independent component analysis, variables reflecting core aspects of cognitive and structural change throughout the lifespan. Furthermore, memory encoding activity aligned to fundamental aspects of brain organization, such as large-scale connectivity and evolutionary cortical expansion gradients. Altogether, we provide novel support for a perspective on memory aging in which maintenance and decay of episodic memory in older age needs to be understood from a comprehensive life-long perspective rather than as a late-life phenomenon only.

Age-Related Differences in Functional Asymmetry During Memory Retrieval Revisited: No Evidence for Contralateral Overactivation or Compensation.

Brain asymmetry is inherent to cognitive processing and seems to reflect processing efficiency. Lower frontal asymmetry is often observed in older adults during memory retrieval, yet it is unclear whether lower asymmetry implies an age-related increase in contralateral recruitment, whether less asymmetry reflects compensation, is limited to frontal regions, or predicts neurocognitive stability or decline. We assessed age-related differences in asymmetry across the entire cerebral cortex, using functional magnetic resonance imaging data from 89 young and 76 older adults during successful retrieval, and surface-based methods allowing direct homotopic comparison of activity between cortical hemispheres . An extensive left-asymmetric network facilitated retrieval in both young and older adults, whereas diverse frontal and parietal regions exhibited lower asymmetry in older adults. However, lower asymmetry was not associated with age-related increases in contralateral recruitment but primarily reflected either less deactivation in contralateral regions reliably signaling retrieval failure in the young or lower recruitment of the dominant hemisphere-suggesting that functional deficits may drive lower asymmetry in older brains, not compensatory activity. Lower asymmetry predicted neither current memory performance nor the extent of memory change across the preceding ~ 8 years in older adults. Together, these findings are inconsistent with a compensation account for lower asymmetry during retrieval and aging.

Self-reported Sleep Problems Related to Amyloid Deposition in Cortical Regions with High HOMER1 Gene Expression.

Sleep problems are related to the elevated levels of the Alzheimer's disease (AD) biomarker ß-amyloid (Aß). Hypotheses about the causes of this relationship can be generated from molecular markers of sleep problems identified in rodents. A major marker of sleep deprivation is Homer1a, a neural protein coded by the HOMER1 gene, which has also been implicated in brain Aß accumulation. Here, we tested whether the relationship between cortical Aß accumulation and self-reported sleep quality, as well as changes in sleep quality over 3 years, was stronger in cortical regions with high HOMER1 mRNA expression levels. In a sample of 154 cognitively healthy older adults, Aß correlated with poorer sleep quality cross-sectionally and longitudinally (n = 62), but more strongly in the younger than in older individuals. Effects were mainly found in regions with high expression of HOMER1. The anatomical distribution of the sleep-Aß relationship followed closely the Aß accumulation pattern in 69 patients with mild cognitive impairment or AD. Thus, the results indicate that the relationship between sleep problems and Aß accumulation may involve Homer1 activity in the cortical regions, where harbor Aß deposits in AD. The findings may advance our understanding of the relationship between sleep problems and AD risk.

Anterior and posterior hippocampus macro- and microstructure across the lifespan in relation to memory-A longitudinal study.

There is evidence for a hippocampal long axis anterior-posterior (AP) differentiation in memory processing, which may have implications for the changes in episodic memory performance seen across development and aging. The hippocampus shows substantial structural changes with age, but the lifespan trajectories of hippocampal sub-regions along the AP axis are not established. The aim of the present study was to test whether the micro- and macro-structural age-trajectories of the anterior (aHC) and posterior (pHC) hippocampus are different. In a single-center longitudinal study, 1,790 cognitively healthy participants, 4.1-93.4 years of age, underwent a total of 3,367 MRI examinations and 3,033 memory tests sessions over 1-6 time points, spanning an interval up to 11.1 years. T1-weighted scans were used to estimate the volume of aHC and pHC (macrostructure), and diffusion tensor imaging to measure mean diffusion (MD, microstructure) within each region. We found that the macro- and microstructural lifespan-trajectories of aHC and pHC were clearly distinguishable, with partly common and partly unique variance shared with age. aHC showed a protracted period of microstructural development, while pHC microstructural development as indexed by MD was more or less completed in early childhood. In contrast, pHC showed larger unique aging-related changes. An aHC-pHC difference was also observed for volume, with pHC changing relatively more with higher age. All regions showed age-dependent relationships with episodic memory. aHC micro- and macrostructure was significantly related to verbal memory independently of age, but the relationships were still strongest among the older participants. We suggest that memory processes supported by each sub-region improve or decline in concert with volumetric and microstructural changes in the same age-period. Future research should disentangle the lifespan relationship between changes in these structural properties and different memory processes, encoding versus retrieval in particular, as well as other cognitive functions depending on the hippocampal long-axis specialization.

High-Expanding Regions in Primate Cortical Brain Evolution Support Supramodal Cognitive Flexibility.

Primate cortical evolution has been characterized by massive and disproportionate expansion of a set of specific regions in the neocortex. The associated increase in neocortical neurons comes with a high metabolic cost, thus the functions served by these regions must have conferred significant evolutionary advantage. In the present series of analyses, we show that evolutionary high-expanding cortex - as estimated from patterns of surface growth from several primate species - shares functional connections with different brain networks in a context-dependent manner. Specifically, we demonstrate that high-expanding cortex is characterized by high internetwork functional connectivity; is recruited flexibly over many different cognitive tasks; and changes its functional coupling pattern between rest and a multimodal task-state. The capacity of high-expanding cortex to connect flexibly with various specialized brain networks depending on particular cognitive requirements suggests that its selective growth and sustainment in evolution may have been linked to an involvement in supramodal cognition. In accordance with an evolutionary-developmental view, we find that this observed ability of high-expanding regions - to flexibly modulate functional connections as a function of cognitive state - emerges gradually through childhood, with a prolonged developmental trajectory plateauing in young adulthood.

Development and Decline of the Hippocampal Long-Axis Specialization and Differentiation During Encoding and Retrieval of Episodic Memories.

Change in hippocampal function is a major factor in life span development and decline of episodic memory. Evidence indicates a long-axis specialization where anterior hippocampus is more engaged during encoding than during retrieval, and posterior more engaged during retrieval than during encoding. We tested the life span trajectory of hippocampal long-axis episodic memory-related activity and functional connectivity (FC) in 496 participants (6.8-80.8 years) encoding and retrieving associative memories. We found evidence for a long-axis encoding-retrieval specialization that declined linearly during development and aging, eventually vanishing in the older adults. This was mainly driven by age effects on retrieval, which was associated with gradually lower activity from childhood to adulthood, followed by positive age relationships until 70 years. This pattern of age effects characterized task engagement regardless of memory success or failure. Especially for retrieval, children engaged posterior hippocampus more than anterior, while anterior was relatively more activated already in teenagers. Significant intrahippocampal connectivity was found during task, which declined with age. The results suggest that hippocampal long-axis differentiation and communication during episodic memory tasks develop rapidly during childhood, are different in older compared with younger adults, and that the age effects are related to task engagement, not the successful retrieval of episodic memories specifically.

Maintained Frontal Activity Underlies High Memory Function Over 8 Years in Aging.

Aging is characterized by substantial average decline in memory performance. Yet contradictory explanations have been given for how the brains of high-performing older adults work: either by engagement of compensatory processes such as recruitment of additional networks or by maintaining young adults' patterns of activity. Distinguishing these components requires large experimental samples and longitudinal follow-up. Here, we investigate which features are key to high memory in aging, directly testing these hypotheses by studying a large sample of adult participants (n > 300) with fMRI during an episodic memory experiment where item-context relationships were implicitly encoded. The analyses revealed that low levels of activity in frontal networks-known to be involved in memory encoding-were associated with low memory performance in the older adults only. Importantly, older participants with low memory performance and low frontal activity exhibited a strong longitudinal memory decline in an independent verbal episodic memory task spanning 8 years back (n = 52). These participants were also characterized by lower hippocampal volumes and steeper rates of cortical atrophy. Altogether, maintenance of frontal brain function during encoding seems to be a primary characteristic of preservation of memory function in aging, likely reflecting intact ability to integrate information.

Continuity and Discontinuity in Human Cortical Development and Change From Embryonic Stages to Old Age.

The human cerebral cortex is highly regionalized, and this feature emerges from morphometric gradients in the cerebral vesicles during embryonic development. We tested if this principle of regionalization could be traced from the embryonic development to the human life span. Data-driven fuzzy clustering was used to identify regions of coordinated longitudinal development of cortical surface area (SA) and thickness (CT) (n = 301, 4-12 years). The principal divide for the developmental SA clusters extended from the inferior-posterior to the superior-anterior cortex, corresponding to the major embryonic morphometric anterior-posterior (AP) gradient. Embryonic factors showing a clear AP gradient were identified, and we found significant differences in gene expression of these factors between the anterior and posterior clusters. Further, each identified developmental SA and CT clusters showed distinguishable life span trajectories in a larger longitudinal dataset (4-88 years, 1633 observations), and the SA and CT clusters showed differential relationships to cognitive functions. This means that regions that developed together in childhood also changed together throughout life, demonstrating continuity in regionalization of cortical changes. The AP divide in SA development also characterized genetic patterning obtained in an adult twin sample. In conclusion, the development of cortical regionalization is a continuous process from the embryonic stage throughout life.

The Lifespan Trajectory of the Encoding-Retrieval Flip: A Multimodal Examination of Medial Parietal Cortex Contributions to Episodic Memory.

The formation of episodic memories is associated with deactivation during encoding and activation during retrieval in the posteromedial cortex (PMC). We hypothesized that the encoding/retrieval (E/R) flip is a critical component of episodic memory across the lifespan because structural and metabolic changes in the PMC coincide with the fine tuning of the episodic memory system in development and the reductions of memory performance in aging. The aims of the present study were, first, to describe lifespan trajectories of PMC encoding and retrieval activity in 270 human participants (167 females) from 6 to 80 years of age. Our second goal was to construct a model for episodic memory development in which contributions from brain activity, cortical thickness (CT), and structural connectivity are accounted for. We found that modulation of neural activity in response to memory encoding and retrieval demands was not fully developed until adolescence and decreased from adulthood through old age. The magnitude of the E/R flip was related to source memory and 55% of the age-related variance in source memory performance during childhood and adolescence could be accounted for by the E/R flip, CT, and mean diffusivity together. However, only CT and the E/R flip provided unique contributions with which to explain memory performance. The results suggest that neural dynamics in the PMC is related to the development of episodic memory during childhood and adolescence. The similar trajectories of the E/R flip and episodic memory emergence and decline through development and aging further suggests that a lifelong relationship exists.SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT Modulation of neural activity in the posteromedial cortex (PMC) in response to memory encoding/retrieval (E/R) demands (E/R flip) does not reach its peak until adolescence and decreases from adulthood through old age. The magnitude of the E/R flip is related to source memory and 55% of the age-related variance in source memory performance during childhood and adolescence can be accounted for by the E/R flip and brain structure together. The results suggest that neural dynamics in the PMC is related to the development of episodic memory function during childhood and adolescence and the similar trajectories of the E/R flip and episodic memory performance through development and aging suggests that a lifelong relationship exists.

Multimodal cortical and hippocampal prediction of episodic-memory plasticity in young and older adults.

Episodic memory can be trained in both early and late adulthood, but there is considerable variation in cognitive improvement across individuals. Which brain characteristics make some individuals benefit more than others? We used a multimodal approach to investigate whether volumetric magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and resting-state functional MRI characteristics of the cortex and hippocampus, brain regions involved in episodic-memory function, were predictive of cognitive improvement after memory training. We hypothesized that these brain characteristics would differentially predict memory improvement in young and older adults, given the vulnerability of cortical regions as well as the hippocampus to healthy aging. Following structural and resting-state activity magnetic resonance scans, 50 young and 76 older participants completed 10 weeks of strategic episodic-memory training. Both age groups improved their memory performance, but the young adults more so than the older. Vertex-wise analyses of cortical volume showed no significant relation to memory benefit. When analyzing the two age groups separately, hippocampal volume was predictive of memory improvement in the group of older participants only. In this age group, the lower resting-state activity of the hippocampus was also predictive of memory improvement. Both volumetric and resting-state characteristics of the hippocampus explained unique variance of the improvement in the older participants suggesting that a multimodal imaging approach is valuable for the understanding of mechanisms underlying memory plasticity in aging.

The Disconnected Brain and Executive Function Decline in Aging.

Higher order speeded cognitive abilities depend on efficient coordination of activity across the brain, rendering them vulnerable to age reductions in structural and functional brain connectivity. The concept of "disconnected aging" has been invoked, suggesting that degeneration of connections between distant brain regions cause cognitive reductions. However, it has not been shown that changes in cognitive functions over time can be explained by simultaneous changes in brain connectivity. We followed 119 young and middle-aged (23-52 years) and older (63-86 years) adults for 3.3 years with repeated assessments of structural and functional brain connectivity and executive functions. We found unique age-related longitudinal reductions in executive function over and above changes in more basic cognitive processes. Intriguingly, 82.5% of the age-related decline in executive function could be explained by changes in connectivity over time. While both structural and functional connectivity changes were related to longitudinal reductions in executive function, only structural connectivity change could explain the age-specific decline. This suggests that the major part of the age-related reductions in executive function can be attributed to micro- and macrostructural alterations in brain connectivity. Although correlational in nature, we believe the present results constitute evidence for a "disconnected brain" view on cognitive aging.

Decoupling of large-scale brain networks supports the consolidation of durable episodic memories.

At a large scale, the human brain is organized into modules of interconnected regions, some of which play opposing roles in supporting cognition. In particular, the Default-Mode Network (DMN) has been linked to operations on internal representations, while task-positive networks are recruited during interactions with the external world. Here, we test the hypothesis that the generation of durable long-term memories depends on optimal recruitment of such antagonistic large-scale networks. As long-term memory consolidation is a process ongoing for days and weeks after an experience, we propose that individuals characterized by strong decoupling of the DMN and task-positive networks at rest operate in a mode beneficial for the long-term stabilization of episodic memories. To capture network connectivity unaffected by transient task demands and representative of brain behavior outside an experimental setting, 87 participants were scanned during rest before performing an associative encoding task. To link individual resting-state functional connectivity patterns to time-dependent memory consolidation processes, participants were given an unannounced memory test, either after a brief interval or after a retention period of ~6 weeks. We found that participants with a resting state characterized by high synchronicity in a DMN-centered network system and low synchronicity between task-positive networks showed superior recollection weeks after encoding. These relationships were not observed for information probed only hours after encoding. Furthermore, the two network systems were found to be anticorrelated. Our results suggest that this memory-relevant antagonism between DMN and task-positive networks is maintained through complex regulatory interactions between the systems.

Relationship between structural and functional connectivity change across the adult lifespan: A longitudinal investigation.

Extensive efforts are devoted to understand the functional (FC) and structural connections (SC) of the brain. FC is usually measured by functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), and conceptualized as degree of synchronicity in brain activity between different regions. SC is typically indexed by measures of white matter (WM) properties, for example, by diffusion weighted imaging (DWI). FC and SC are intrinsically related, in that coordination of activity across regions ultimately depends on fast and efficient transfer of information made possible by structural connections. Convergence between FC and SC has been shown for specific networks, especially the default mode network (DMN). However, it is not known to what degree FC is constrained by major WM tracts and whether FC and SC change together over time. Here, 120 participants (20-85 years) were tested at two time points, separated by 3.3 years. Resting-state fMRI was used to measure FC, and DWI to measure WM microstructure as an index of SC. TRACULA, part of FreeSurfer, was used for automated tractography of 18 major WM tracts. Cortical regions with tight structural couplings defined by tractography were only weakly related at the functional level. Certain regions of the DMN showed a modest relationship between change in FC and SC, but for the most part, the two measures changed independently. The main conclusions are that anatomical alignment of SC and FC seems restricted to specific networks and tracts, and that changes in SC and FC are not necessarily strongly correlated. Hum Brain Mapp 38:561-573, 2017. © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Brain Events Underlying Episodic Memory Changes in Aging: A Longitudinal Investigation of Structural and Functional Connectivity.

Episodic memories are established and maintained by close interplay between hippocampus and other cortical regions, but degradation of a fronto-striatal network has been suggested to be a driving force of memory decline in aging. We wanted to directly address how changes in hippocampal-cortical versus striatal-cortical networks over time impact episodic memory with age. We followed 119 healthy participants (20-83 years) for 3.5 years with repeated tests of episodic verbal memory and magnetic resonance imaging for quantification of functional and structural connectivity and regional brain atrophy. While hippocampal-cortical functional connectivity predicted memory change in young, changes in cortico-striatal functional connectivity were related to change in recall in older adults. Within each age group, effects of functional and structural connectivity were anatomically closely aligned. Interestingly, the relationship between functional connectivity and memory was strongest in the age ranges where the rate of reduction of the relevant brain structure was lowest, implying selective impacts of the different brain events on memory. Together, these findings suggest a partly sequential and partly simultaneous model of brain events underlying cognitive changes in aging, where different functional and structural events are more or less important in various time windows, dismissing a simple uni-factorial view on neurocognitive aging.

Mechanisms underlying encoding of short-lived versus durable episodic memories.

We continuously encounter and process novel events in the surrounding world, but only some episodes will leave detailed memory traces that can be recollected after weeks and months. Here, our aim was to monitor brain activity during encoding of events that eventually transforms into long-term stable memories. Previous functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) studies have shown that the degree of activation of different brain regions during encoding is predictive of later recollection success. However, most of these studies tested participants' memories the same day as encoding occurred, whereas several lines of research suggest that extended post-encoding processing is of crucial importance for long-term consolidation. Using fMRI, we tested whether the same encoding mechanisms are predictive of recollection success after hours as after a retention interval of several weeks. Seventy-eight participants were scanned during an associative encoding task and given a source memory test the same day or after ∼6 weeks. We found a strong link between regional activity levels during encoding and recollection success over short time intervals. However, results further showed that durable source memories, i.e., events recollected after several weeks, were not simply the events associated with the highest activity levels at encoding. Rather, strong levels of connectivity between the right hippocampus and perceptual areas, as well as with parts of the self-referential default-mode network, seemed instrumental in establishing durable source memories. Thus, we argue that an initial intensity-based encoding is necessary for short-term encoding of events, whereas additional processes involving hippocampal-cortical communication aid transformation into stable long-term memories.