Affiliation:
1. BCBL - Basque Center on Cognition , Brain and Language, Mikeletegi Pasealekua 69, 20009 Donostia, Gipuzkoa, Spain
2. IKERBASQUE - Basque Foundation for Science , 48013 Bilbo, Bizkaia, Spain
Abstract
Abstract
We often use inner narration when thinking about past and future events. The present paradigm explicitly addresses the influence of the language used in inner narration on the hippocampus-dependent event construction process. We assessed the language context effect during the inner narration of different event types: past, future, daydream, and self-unrelated fictitious events. The language context was assessed via a fluent bilingual population who used inner narration, either in their first language (L1) or second language (L2). Not all inner narration of events elicited hippocampo-cortical activity. In fact, only the angular gyrus and precuneus-retrosplenial cortex were activated by inner narration across all event types. More precisely, only inner narration of events which entailed the simulation of bodily self-location in space (whether or not they were time-marked: past, future, daydream) depended on the hippocampo-cortical system, while inner narration of events that did not entail bodily self-location (self-unrelated fictitious) did not. The language context of the narration influenced the bilinguals’ hippocampo-cortical system by enhancing the co-activation of semantic areas with the hippocampus for inner narration of events in the L2. Overall, this study highlights 2 important characteristics of hippocampo-cortical-dependent inner narration of events: The core episodic hippocampal system is activated for inner narration of events simulating self-location in space (regardless of time-marking), and the inner language used for narration (L1 or L2) mediates hippocampal functional connectivity.
Funder
Spanish State Research Agency
Basque Government
“la Caixa” Banking Foundation
Fundación Tatiana Pérez de Guzmán el Bueno, Basque Government
Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation
Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness
Publisher
Oxford University Press (OUP)
Subject
Cellular and Molecular Neuroscience,Cognitive Neuroscience