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Lingering Options: How Choice Context Shapes Hippocampal Memory Representations
Azara Lalla1, Jamie Snytte1, Signy Sheldon1
1McGill University, Montreal, Canada.
Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience
|December 1, 2025
Summary
The anterior hippocampus shows greater memory similarity for choices made in conceptually similar scenarios compared to dissimilar ones. This highlights how decision context influences memory retrieval in the brain.
Area of Science:
- Neuroscience
- Cognitive Psychology
- Decision Science
Background:
- The anterior hippocampus is implicated in both decision-making and memory representation.
- Conceptual similarity between choice options influences hippocampal engagement during decision-making.
- Understanding how the anterior hippocampus represents memories of choices is crucial.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate how remembering chosen versus unchosen options from conceptually similar and dissimilar choice scenarios affects hippocampal memory representations.
- To examine the role of the anterior hippocampus in memory retrieval based on decision context.
Main Methods:
- A preregistered functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) study.
- Participants made decisions between conceptually similar or dissimilar food options.
- Item recognition memory task followed by representational similarity analysis (RSA) and whole-brain analysis.
Main Results:
- Higher anterior hippocampal similarity was observed when remembering options from conceptually similar choice trials compared to dissimilar ones.
- This effect was not solely explained by the conceptual overlap of the options.
- Multivariate whole-brain analysis revealed distinct neural patterns differentiating memory for chosen/unchosen options across trial types.
Conclusions:
- The anterior hippocampus shows heightened memory representation for choices made within conceptually similar contexts.
- Memory storage and retrieval are significantly influenced by the deliberative context, particularly in the anterior hippocampus.
- These findings advance our understanding of the neural mechanisms linking decision-making and memory.
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