Neural correlates of free recall of “famous events” in a “hypermnestic” individual as compared to an age- and education-matched reference group

BACKGROUND: Memory performance of an individual (within the age range: 50–55 years old) showing superior memory abilities (protagonist PR) was compared to an age- and education-matched reference group in a historical facts (“famous events”) retrieval task. RESULTS: Contrasting task versus baseline performance both PR and the reference group showed fMRI activation patterns in parietal and occipital brain regions. The reference group additionally demonstrated activation patterns in cingulate gyrus, whereas PR showed additional widespread activation patterns comprising frontal and cerebellar brain regions. The direct comparison between PR and the reference group revealed larger fMRI contrasts for PR in right frontal, superior temporal and cerebellar brain regions. CONCLUSIONS: It was concluded that PR generally recruits brain regions as normal memory performers do, but in a more elaborate way, and furthermore, that he applied a memory-strategy that potentially includes executively driven multi-modal transcoding of information and recruitment of implicit memory resources. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (10.1186/s12868-018-0435-y) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.