Title
Brain activation patterns during memory of cognitive agency.
Abstract
Agency is the awareness that one's own self is the agent or author of an action, a thought, or a feeling. The implicit memory that one's self was the originator of a cognitive event – the sense of cognitive agency – has not yet been fully explored in terms of relevant neural systems. In this functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) study, we examined brain activation patterns differentiating memory for the source of previously self-generated vs. experimenter-presented word items from a sentence completion paradigm designed to be emotionally neutral and semantically constrained in content. Accurate memory for the source of self-generated vs. externally-presented word items resulted in activation of dorsal medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) bilaterally, supporting an emerging body of work that indicates a key role for this region in self-referential processing. Our data extend the function of mPFC into the domain of memory and the accurate retrieval of the sense of cognitive agency under conditions where agency was encoded implicitly.
Year
DOI
Venue
2006
10.1016/j.neuroimage.2005.12.058
NeuroImage
Keywords
Field
DocType
fMRI,Medial prefrontal cortex,Source memory,Agency,Self-referential processes
Semantic memory,Developmental psychology,Explicit memory,Implicit memory,Visual memory,Cognitive psychology,Psychology,Cognition,Long-term memory,Spatial memory,Methods used to study memory
Journal
Volume
Issue
ISSN
31
2
1053-8119
Citations 
PageRank 
References 
4
0.76
3
Authors
6
Name
Order
Citations
PageRank
Sophia Vinogradov182.58
Tracy L Luks2294.81
Gregory V Simpson393.29
Brian J Schulman440.76
Shenly Glenn5182.04
Amy E Wong640.76