PhD defence Yuejuan Wang

Keywords: Temporal memory, Event boundaries, Hippocampus, Theta oscillations (tACS) 

"The Memory Time Machine: Morphing Temporal Memory using Event Segmentation, Neuroimaging and Noninvasive Brain Stimulation"

This PhD thesis investigated how the human brain organizes experiences in time to form coherent memories. In everyday life, experiences unfold continuously, yet people naturally divide them into meaningful events, such as scenes in a movie or episodes in a story. This thesis examined how such event boundaries influence the way temporal relationships between experiences are remembered.

Across a series of behavioral and neuroimaging studies, the research focused on the hippocampus, a brain region crucial for memory, and its interaction with other brain areas. The work shows that when experiences are segmented into events, people tend to perceive moments within the same event as closer together in time, while moments separated by boundaries are remembered as further apart. Importantly, the thesis demonstrates that these temporal memory processes can be influenced by gently stimulating brain activity at specific rhythms using non-invasive brain stimulation. Together, the findings provide new insights into how the brain structures time in memory and suggest potential ways to modulate memory processes.

Click here for the live stream.