Overview
- In a Journal of Neuroscience study, 35 young adults listened to everyday stories that emphasized either conceptual thoughts and emotions or perceptual sensory details during fMRI.
- Conceptual narratives were linked to stronger anterior hippocampal connectivity with regions of the default mode network involved in self-referential and emotional processing.
- Perceptual narratives strengthened hippocampal connections with lateral temporal, parietal, and other non–default mode regions tied to memory performance.
- The hippocampal–cortical connectivity patterns observed while listening predicted how accurately participants later recalled the stories’ core events.
- Authors suggest these neural signatures could guide tailoring of information for different groups, such as older adults, though this application has not yet been tested.