Collective memory shapes the organization of individual memories in the medial prefrontal cortex

Pierre Gagnepain; Thomas Vallée; Serge Heiden; Matthieu Decorde; Jean-Luc Gauvain; Antoine Laurent; Carine Klein-Peschanski; Fausto Viader; Denis Peschanski; Francis Eustache

doi:10.1038/s41562-019-0779-z

Collective memory shapes the organization of individual memories in the medial prefrontal cortex

Pierre Gagnepain ¹ Thomas Vallée ¹ Serge Heiden ² Matthieu Decorde ² Jean-Luc Gauvain ³ Antoine Laurent ^{3, 4} Carine Klein-Peschanski ^{5, 6} Fausto Viader ¹ Denis Peschanski ^{5, 6} Francis Eustache ¹

1 NIMH - Neuropsychologie et imagerie de la mémoire humaine

2 IHRIM - Institut d’Histoire des Représentations et des Idées dans les Modernités

3 LIMSI - Laboratoire d'Informatique pour la Mécanique et les Sciences de l'Ingénieur

4 LIUM - Laboratoire d'Informatique de l'Université du Mans

5 CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique

6 HESAM - HESAM Université

Abstract : It has long been hypothesized that individual recollection fits collective memory. To look for a collective schema, we analysed the content of 30 years of media coverage of World War II on French national television. We recorded human brain activity using functional magnetic resonance imaging as participants recalled World War II displays at the Caen Memorial Museum following an initial tour. We focused on the medial prefrontal cortex, a key region for social cognition and memory schemas. The organization of individual memories captured using the distribution of the functional magnetic resonance imaging signal in the dorsal part of the medial prefrontal cortex was more accurately predicted by the structure of the collective schema than by various control models of contextual or semantic memory. Collective memory, which exists outside and beyond individuals, can also organize individual memories and constitutes a common mental model that connects people’s memories across time and space.

Document type :

Journal articles

Domain :

Humanities and Social Sciences / Methods and statistics

Humanities and Social Sciences / Linguistics

Life Sciences [q-bio] / Neurons and Cognition [q-bio.NC] / Neurobiology

Complete list of metadatas

https://halshs.archives-ouvertes.fr/halshs-02416130
Contributor : Serge Heiden <>
Submitted on : Tuesday, December 17, 2019 - 3:18:58 PM
Last modification on : Friday, February 21, 2020 - 1:37:47 AM

Collective memory shapes the organization of individual memories in the medial prefrontal cortex

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Collective memory shapes the organization of individual memories in the medial prefrontal cortex

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