Offset-related brain activity in the left ventrolateral prefrontal cortex promotes long-term memory formation of verbal events

BackgroundRecent evidence suggests that brain activity following the offset of a stimulus during encoding contributes to long-term memory formation, however exact mechanisms underlying offset-related are still unclear.ObjectivesHere, in three repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation studies (rTMS) we investigated left ventrolateral prefrontal cortex (VLPFC). rTMS was administered at different points time around while participants encoded visually-presented words or pairs words. The analyses focused on effects subsequent performance.ResultsrTMS stimuli, but not online encoding, disrupted performance. In Experiment 1 found specifically initiated by stimuli rather than general, post-stimulus processes. 2 showed this effect dependent upon rTMS-induced somatosensory effects. third experiment further demonstrated robust decline associative performance when delivered word pairs, suggesting may contribute binding information into an episodic trace.ConclusionsThe represent event boundary promotes reinstatement previously experienced and binding.