Neural bases of motivated forgetting of autobiographical memories

Abstract

ABSTRACT It is important for mental health to be able to control unwanted intrusive memories. Previous studies suggest that middle frontal gyrus (MFG) down regulates pathways underlie the suppression of retrieval of general memories. However, the neural basis of motivated forgetting of autobiographical memories is unclear. Therefore, this study used two samples to explore the neural mechanisms of motivated forgetting of self-referential memories. Every participant provided 40 life events (20 negative and 20 neutral) from their past personal experience, and then completed the Think/No-Think task while undergoing functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). The first sample showed a significant reduction in recall in the No-Think condition relative to the Think condition. Attempting to exclude negative autobiographical memories from awareness was associated with increased activity in the right MFG, superior frontal gyrus (SFG), and inferior frontal gyrus (IFG), while reduced activity was observed in the bilateral Brodmann areas BA18 and BA19, bilateral medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC), bilateral precuneus, bilateral post cingulate cortex (PCC), the left parahippocampus, and the left hippocampus. Functional connectivity analyses showed that the right MFG projected into the bilateral mPFC, bilateral precuneus, and bilateral middle occipital gyrus (MOG) for negative autobiographical memories. The second sample replicated the results of the first sample at both the behavioral and brain levels. These results suggest that retrieval suppression of autobiographical memories involve the pathway between the MFG and the mPFC and precuneus to exclude self-referential memories. These results reveal how people engage in motivated forgetting of negative events in their daily lives.