Reading memory formation from the eyes

TY - JOUR

T1 - Reading memory formation from the eyes

AU - Bergt, Anne

AU - Urai, Anne E

AU - Donner, Tobias H

AU - Schwabe, Lars

N1 - © 2018 Federation of European Neuroscience Societies and John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

PY - 2018/6

Y1 - 2018/6

N2 - At any time, we are processing thousands of stimuli, but only few of them will be remembered hours or days later. Is there any way to predict which ones? Here, we tested whether the pupil response to ongoing stimuli, an indicator of physiological arousal known to be relevant for memory formation, is a reliable predictor of long-term memory for these stimuli, over at least 1 day. Pupil dilation was tracked while participants performed visual and auditory encoding tasks. Memory was tested immediately after encoding and 24 hr later. Irrespective of the encoding modality, trial-by-trial variations in pupil dilation predicted reliably which stimuli were recalled in the immediate and 24 hr-delayed tests, in particular for emotionally arousing stimuli. These results show that our eyes may provide a window into the formation of long-term memories. Furthermore, our findings underline the important role of central arousal systems in the rapid formation of memories in the brain, possibly by gating synaptic plasticity mechanisms in the neocortex.

AB - At any time, we are processing thousands of stimuli, but only few of them will be remembered hours or days later. Is there any way to predict which ones? Here, we tested whether the pupil response to ongoing stimuli, an indicator of physiological arousal known to be relevant for memory formation, is a reliable predictor of long-term memory for these stimuli, over at least 1 day. Pupil dilation was tracked while participants performed visual and auditory encoding tasks. Memory was tested immediately after encoding and 24 hr later. Irrespective of the encoding modality, trial-by-trial variations in pupil dilation predicted reliably which stimuli were recalled in the immediate and 24 hr-delayed tests, in particular for emotionally arousing stimuli. These results show that our eyes may provide a window into the formation of long-term memories. Furthermore, our findings underline the important role of central arousal systems in the rapid formation of memories in the brain, possibly by gating synaptic plasticity mechanisms in the neocortex.

KW - Journal Article

U2 - 10.1111/ejn.13984

DO - 10.1111/ejn.13984

M3 - SCORING: Journal article

C2 - 29862585

VL - 47

SP - 1525

EP - 1533

JO - EUR J NEUROSCI

JF - EUR J NEUROSCI

SN - 0953-816X

IS - 12

ER -