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Jamal A. Williams

@jayneuro.bsky.social

67 followers 54 following 20 posts

Interested in understanding the neural mechanisms underlying music cognition via neuroimaging and computational modeling Neuroscience PhD from Princeton Neuroscience Postdoc at MIT https://scholar.google.co.uk/citations?user=RjmK2NgAAAAJ&hl=en

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Jamal A. Williams @jayneuro.bsky.social · Jul 8

I’m also grateful for the support from @PrincetonNeuro.bsky.social, and my D-SPAN award from the NINDS. #neuroskyence #psychscisky #BlackInNeuro #BlackSky

Jamal A. Williams @jayneuro.bsky.social · Jul 8

Super grateful for support from my amazing collaborators @ptoncompmemlab.bsky.social, Janice Chen, @chrisbaldassano.bsky.social, Lisa Margulis, and Uri Hasson.

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Jamal A. Williams @jayneuro.bsky.social · Jul 8

This work also addresses a cinematic puzzle: Why do some movies linger in our minds? Our work shows one way this can happen, by highlighting how repetition of musical themes may help to promote lasting memories for earlier scenes.

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Jamal A. Williams @jayneuro.bsky.social · Jul 8

By improving our understanding of how music can evoke – and potentially strengthen – naturalistic memories, this work can inform the development of music-based therapies for memory deficits, for example in aging.

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Jamal A. Williams @jayneuro.bsky.social · Jul 8

In summary, our study bridges the gap between recent work on episodic memory using naturalistic stimuli and decades of work on music-evoked memory retrieval.

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Jamal A. Williams @jayneuro.bsky.social · Jul 8

In an exploratory analysis, we checked whether this music-related reactivation extended beyond the DMN. We found specificity to the DMN and visual areas—but not across the whole brain.

Figure showing that the reactivation-memory effect was present across regions in the DMN and the visual peripheral network, but not other cortical networks.

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Jamal A. Williams @jayneuro.bsky.social · Jul 8

As another control, we computed the relationship between reactivation and subsequent memory for the no-music group. When we did this, there was no significant relationship in the DMN; and the music group showed a stronger reactivation–memory link than the no-music group across DMN ROIs.

Figure showing that the reactivation-memory effect was greater in the music condition than the no-music condition when testing across the full DMN.

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Jamal A. Williams @jayneuro.bsky.social · Jul 8

The findings from this ISC regression analysis suggest that reactivation may have effects on subsequent recall that go beyond the effects of initial encoding strength.

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Jamal A. Williams @jayneuro.bsky.social · Jul 8

Yes—the effect was numerically weaker in some areas (angular gyrus) but numerically stronger in other areas (posterior medial cortex); both regions remained significant when using a parcel-based searchlight.

Three figures showing results from our analysis where we regressed out spatial ISC from the original reactivation scores and tested whether the residuals still predicted subsequent memory. Reactivation in PMC still predicted subsequent memory whereas the relationship between reactivation and memory in angular gyrus was no longer significant. The reactivation-memory relationship numerically decreased in angular gyrus but increased in PMC. The effect remained significant in PMC and angular gyrus when performing the analysis as a parcel-wise searchlight.

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Jamal A. Williams @jayneuro.bsky.social · Jul 8

Using ISC from the brain regions that predicted subsequent memory in the music group, we regressed ISC out from their reactivation scores, and we asked: do residual reactivation scores still predict memory?

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Jamal A. Williams @jayneuro.bsky.social · Jul 8

To tease apart these possibilities, we needed a way of measuring initial encoding strength. Prior studies have found that spatial inter-subject correlation (ISC) predicts subsequent memory; we found this in our study also, validating the use of ISC as a measure of initial encoding strength.

Illustration of the process of computing spatial inter-subject correlation, showing how one participant’s neural pattern for a scene is correlated with the average of the other participants’ neural patterns for that scene

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Jamal A. Williams @jayneuro.bsky.social · Jul 8

One explanation for this result is that neural reactivation causes improved subsequent recall; alternatively, good initial encoding of a scene could lead to both higher reactivation of the scene and better subsequent recall (leading to a correlation, even if no causal relationship was present).

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Jamal A. Williams @jayneuro.bsky.social · Jul 8

We then split reactivation scores by whether the corresponding scene was later remembered or forgotten.

Main Result: Scenes that were remembered showed significantly higher reactivation in key default mode network (DMN) regions—posterior medial cortex and angular gyrus.

The top figure is a diagram showing how reactivation scores were sorted based on whether their corresponding scene was remembered or forgotten. The bottom figures show results of the analysis: We found that remembered reactivation scores were higher in key DMN regions; left angular gyrus and left posterior medial cortex. We also found converging evidence when performing the same analysis as a parcel-wise searchlight.

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Jamal A. Williams @jayneuro.bsky.social · Jul 8

We tracked neural reactivation by comparing activity patterns in the music group (during later music repeats) to patterns in the no-music group (during earlier exposures to the same theme). This gave us a measure of how much non-musical event information was brought back online by the music.

Diagram showing how we compared neural activity from later scenes containing a repeated theme in the music condition to neural activity from earlier scenes containing the same theme in the no-music condition, while controlling for baseline similarity between scenes.

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Jamal A. Williams @jayneuro.bsky.social · Jul 8

Later on, the same theme plays when Joel and Clementine are out on a lake. Does playing the theme in this scene trigger neural reactivation of the earlier scene, and is the degree of reactivation related to how well participants subsequently remember the earlier scene?

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Jamal A. Williams @jayneuro.bsky.social · Jul 8

For example, in this scene of the movie, Clementine asks for a Valentine’s Day call and Joel walks away while a musical theme plays…

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Jamal A. Williams @jayneuro.bsky.social · Jul 8

We also asked whether this reactivation would be associated with better subsequent recall; prior work has shown that retrieval can help memories stick, and we hypothesized that a similar dynamic could be at work here.

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Jamal A. Williams @jayneuro.bsky.social · Jul 8

The next day, both groups returned and performed spoken free recall for the entire film. We asked: When a musical theme repeated later in the movie, would it reactivate memory for earlier scenes tied to that theme?

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Jamal A. Williams @jayneuro.bsky.social · Jul 8

We had two groups of participants (n=24 each) watch the full film in the MRI scanner.

🎵 One group saw the movie with the original musical score.
🙉 The other group saw the exact same film with all music removed (dialogue + sound effects intact).

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Jamal A. Williams @jayneuro.bsky.social · Jul 8

Music is an incredibly powerful retrieval cue. What is the neural basis of music-evoked memory reactivation? And how does this reactivation relate to later memory for the retrieved events? In our new study, we used Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind to find out. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Music-evoked reactivation during continuous perception is associated with enhanced subsequent recall of naturalistic events

Music is a potent cue for recalling personal experiences, yet the neural basis of music-evoked memory remains elusive. We address this question by using the full-length film Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind to examine how repeated musical themes reactivate previously encoded events in cortex and shape next-day recall. Participants in an fMRI study viewed either the original film (with repeated musical themes) or a no-music version. By comparing neural activity patterns between these groups, we found that music-evoked reactivation of neural patterns linked to earlier scenes in the default mode network was associated with improved subsequent recall. This relationship was specific to the music condition and persisted when we controlled for a proxy measure of initial encoding strength (spatial intersubject correlation), suggesting that music-evoked reactivation may play a role in making event memories stick that is distinct from what happens at initial encoding. ### Competing Interest Statement The authors have declared no competing interest. National Institutes of Health, https://ror.org/01cwqze88, F99 NS118740, R01 MH112357

www.biorxiv.org

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