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Real-world encoding enhances whole-brain functional connectivity of recognized scenes

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

Chelsea Ekstrand¹ (), Jane O'Connor¹, Shaylyn Kress¹, Dave Smith¹, Keva Klamer¹, Joshua Craig¹, Sabrina Werner¹, Rylee Wevers¹, Alireza Taheritorbati¹, Niayesh Allahdad¹; ¹University of Lethbridge

Understanding the neural correlates of real-world episodic memory is a fundamental question in cognitive neuroscience. Prior work suggests that realism is important for context-driven episodic memory, but it remains unclear how fully real-world encoding influences delayed retrieval of naturalistic scenes. In this study, 75 healthy older adults (ages 55–75) completed a novel encoding paradigm. In the Real-world condition (n = 40), participants navigated a building while wearing a portable camera and viewed six live vignettes performed by actors. In the 2D condition (n = 35), participants viewed the same tours on a projector screen. Seven days later, all participants completed a delayed recognition task during fMRI, where they viewed three previously encoded and three novel scenes. To identify whole-brain differences in functional connectivity (FC) during recognition as a function of encoding condition, we used functional connectivity multivariate pattern analysis (fc-MVPA) with post-hoc seed-based connectivity (SBC) analyses. Fc-MVPA revealed 11 regions of interest (ROIS) showing significantly different patterns of whole-brain FC between Real-world and 2D conditions, including nodes of the default mode network (precuneus, PCC, right angular gyrus), dorsal attention network (bilateral superior parietal lobule, right frontal eye fields), and limbic regions (orbitofrontal cortex, temporal pole, hippocampus). SBC from these ROIs showed widespread between-network differences based on encoding condition. Notably, the right limbic/hippocampal ROI exhibited greater connectivity with visual, attentional, and default-mode regions in the Real-world versus 2D condition for recognized scenes. These results indicate that embodied, context-rich encoding alters episodic retrieval network architecture at delayed recognition in older adults.

Topic Area: LONG-TERM MEMORY: Episodic