Movie-watching evokes ripple-like activity within events and at event boundaries

Abstract

Ripples are fast oscillatory events widely recognized as crucial markers for memory consolidation and neural plasticity. These transient bursts of activity are thought to coordinate information transfer between the hippocampus and neocortical areas, providing a temporal framework that supports the stabilization and integration of new memories. However, their role in human memory encoding during naturalistic scenarios remains unexplored. Here, we recorded intracranial electrophysiological data from ten epilepsy patients watching a movie. Ripples were analyzed in the hippocampus and neocortical regions (i.e., temporal and frontal cortex). Our results revealed a differential dynamical pattern of ripple occurrence during encoding. Enhanced hippocampal ripple recruitment was observed at event boundaries, reflecting hippocampal involvement in event segmentation, whereas higher ripple rates were seen within an event for cortical electrodes with higher ripple occurrence at the temporal cortex, reflecting whether an event was later recalled. These findings shed light on the neural mechanisms underlying memory encoding and provide insights into the potential role of ripples in the encoding of an event, suggesting an impact on the formation of long-term memories of distinct episodes.