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Maintenance suppression and retrieval suppression share common neural mechanisms to regulate intrusive thoughts

Poster Session F - Tuesday, March 10, 2026, 8:00 – 10:00 am PDT, Fairview/Kitsilano Ballroom

Caleb N. Jerinic-Brodeur¹ (), Zachary Bretton¹, Molly Rowlands², Lili Sahakyan³, Michael C. Anderson², Jarrod A. Lewis-Peacock¹; ¹University of Texas at Austin, ²University of Cambridge, ³University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

The ability to control unwanted memories is a core feature of cognition that supports adaptive behavior. Individuals can exert inhibitory control over representations in long-term memory (LTM; retrieval suppression) and working memory (WM; maintenance suppression) to modulate their accessibility. However, because these processes have typically been studied separately, their relationship remains unclear. When retrieval suppression fails, unwanted information can intrude into WM, creating a need for maintenance suppression to reestablish control. We hypothesized that maintenance suppression and retrieval suppression rely on overlapping yet distinct neural mechanisms that support the control of intrusive thoughts. We developed a novel fMRI paradigm integrating the Think/No-Think task with a WM removal task to test this prediction. Participants (N = 51) learned arbitrary cue-target image pairs, then completed alternating WM and LTM control blocks. In WM blocks, participants viewed target images and were instructed to either Maintain or Suppress them in working memory. In LTM blocks, participants viewed cue images and were instructed to either retrieve (Think) or suppress retrieval (No-Think) of the associated target. After each trial, participants reported how often the target intruded into awareness during the 10s control period. Whole-brain fMRI classification analyses revealed that each control strategy engaged distinguishable multivariate activity patterns. Critically, when intrusions occurred on No-Think trials, neural patterns for No-Think and Suppress operations converged, suggesting WM control was recruited in these situations. These findings suggest that maintenance suppression and retrieval suppression are distinct processes that work in concert to prevent unwanted memories from occupying the focus of attention.

Topic Area: EXECUTIVE PROCESSES: Monitoring & inhibitory control