Memory systems
How the brain's angular gyrus helps us relive memories
Open access · cc by · source: Europe PMC
Disrupting the angular gyrus reduces a person's ability to freely describe detailed personal memories from their own perspective but does not affect basic word memory.
How this study connects
Role on claims
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A loss of autobiographical detail does not localise to the hippocampus. Stimulating the left angular gyrus selectively reduced spontaneously reported details (d = 0.682) and first-person perspective while leaving cued recall intact, so the same behavioural signature used to infer hippocampal involvement can be produced elsewhere in the network.
Evidence for the claim as stated.
Disrupting the left angular gyrus via continuous theta burst stimulation causally reduces the detail and first-person perspective of retrieved autobiographical memories, without impacting basic cued word-pair recall.
Evidence for the claim as stated.
Open questions
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A loss of autobiographical detail does not localise to the hippocampus. Stimulating the left angular gyrus selectively reduced spontaneously reported details (d = 0.682) and first-person perspective while leaving cued recall intact, so the same behavioural signature used to infer hippocampal involvement can be produced elsewhere in the network.
Study at a glance
- Design
- Human experiment — Disruption/stimulation targeting angular gyrus during autobiographical memory
- N
- N=22 · 11 women; mean age 23.7; range 19–35; right-handed
- Population
- Healthy right-handed adults with normal vision and hearing
- Outcome
- Autobiographical memory performance when angular gyrus function is causally perturbed
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How the brain's angular gyrus helps us relive memories
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22 healthy participants
Twenty-two healthy, right-handed participants (11 female, 11 male) took part in the study (mean age 23.7 years, SD = 3.9 years, range = 19–35 years).
t(21) = 3.199, p = 0.004, d = 0.682
Critically, there was a significant interaction between region and recall type ( F (1,21) = 6.091, p = 0.022, η p 2 = 0.225), which was driven by significantly fewer details reported during free recall after cTBS to the left angular gyrus compared with vertex stimulation ( t (21) = 3.199, p = 0.004, d = 0.682).
Key findings
Stimulating the left angular gyrus selectively reduced the details participants could spontaneously share about their personal memories (t(21) = 3.199, p = 0.004, d = 0.682), but had no effect on cued recall. It also decreased the number of memories participants experienced from a first-person perspective (t(18) = 2.191, p = 0.042, d = 0.503). In contrast, the disruption did not affect their performance on free or cued word-pair memory tasks.
Methodology
The researchers tested 22 healthy participants. In a double-blind setup, they applied continuous theta burst stimulation (cTBS) to either the left angular gyrus or a control brain area (the vertex) during separate sessions. Afterward, participants were tested on both their autobiographical memories and basic word-pair recall.
Limitations
The study only tested a narrow age range of 19–35 years, meaning the findings might not apply to older adults. Because non-invasive brain stimulation only creates temporary changes, the design cannot reveal the long-term cognitive adaptations that occur in patients with permanent lesions. Finally, because the researchers targeted only the left angular gyrus, the study cannot determine whether the right angular gyrus could perform a similar or compensatory function.
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