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Context reinstatement in the hippocampus supports retrieval of episodic memory details

Poster Session E - Monday, March 9, 2026, 2:30 – 4:30 pm PDT, Fairview/Kitsilano Ballroom

Victoria Schelkun¹ (), David Clewett², Lila Davachi^1,3; ¹Columbia University, ²University of California, Los Angeles, ³Nathan Kline Institute

Though our experiences unfold continuously, they are remembered as individual episodes. It is well established that ongoing experience is discretized into episodes according to the stability of contextual features present at encoding that is disrupted at event boundaries. Evidence additionally suggests that context encoding is enhanced at event boundaries, and that retrieval of context aids in the retrieval of event details. In this study, we sought to further investigate the mechanism by which context supports episodic memory retrieval. Participants (N=32) encoded sequences of images that were organized into events defined by an associated auditory and motor context while being scanned by high-resolution fMRI. Participants were then tested for item and temporal memory. When prompted to recall the temporal order of items within an event, we find that subregions of the hippocampus that are sensitive to event boundaries reinstate patterns of activity most similar to that of the items’ respective event boundary during encoding. The extent of pattern reinstatement differentially supports correct memory decisions across hippocampal subfields. These results suggest a mechanism in which contextual information is reinstated to facilitate the retrieval of memory details independent of contextual cues.

Topic Area: LONG-TERM MEMORY: Episodic