Memory of my victory and your defeat: Contributions of reward- and memory-related regions to the encoding of winning events in competitions with others

Social interactions enhance human memories, but little is known about how the neural mechanisms underlying episodic memories are modulated by rewarding outcomes in social interactions. To investigate this, fMRI data were recorded while healthy young adults encoded unfamiliar faces either a competition or control task. In task, participants opponents' rock-paper-scissors game, where trial-by-trial of Win, Draw, and Lose for shown facial expressions opponents (Angry, Neutral, Happy). assessing expressions. After encoding, recognized previously learned. Behavioral showed that emotional valence Angry as Win outcome was rated positively whereas rating negatively remembered more accurately than Neutral Happy both tasks. activation medial orbitofrontal cortex (mOFC) paralleled pattern ratings, with greater Draw conditions condition Moreover, functional connectivity between mOFC hippocampus increased compared to Angry, mOFC-hippocampus predicted individual differences subsequent memory performance only not any other two These results demonstrate enhancement context-dependent rewards involves reward- memory-related regions.