The simple act of choosing influences declarative memory.

Area of Science:

• Cognitive Neuroscience
• Neurobiology

Background:

• Perceived agency and control influence cognition, including decision-making and valuation.
• The impact of perceived control on memory encoding remains largely unexplored.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate if a sense of agency during learning enhances novel memory encoding.
• To explore the neural mechanisms underlying choice-induced memory enhancements.

Main Methods:

• Combined behavioral experiments and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI).
• Manipulated participants' opportunity to make choices during object encoding.
• Analyzed brain activity, focusing on the striatum and hippocampus.

Main Results:

• The opportunity to choose led to significant improvements in declarative memory.
• Anticipatory activation in the striatum correlated with memory enhancements.
• Interactions between the striatum and hippocampus were observed, suggesting striatal modulation of hippocampal memory processes.

Conclusions:

• Perceived control over learning enhances declarative memory.
• The striatum modulates hippocampal function to facilitate memory encoding when agency is present.
• This study reveals a novel interaction between mesolimbic and declarative memory systems.