Personality is a central high-level psychological concept that defines individual human beings and has been associated with a variety of real-world outcomes (e.g., mental health and academic performance). Using 2 h, high resolution, functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) resting state data of 984 (primary dataset N = 801, hold-out dataset N = 183) participants from the Human Connectome Project (HCP), we investigated the relationship between personality (five-factor model, FFM) and intrinsic whole-brain functional connectome. We found a pattern of functional brain connectivity ("global personality network") related to personality traits. Consistent with the heritability of personality traits, the connectivity strength of this global personality network is also heritable (more similar between monozygotic twin pairs compared to the dizygotic twin pairs). Validated by both the repeated family-based 10-fold cross-validation and hold-out dataset, our intersubject network similarity analysis allowed us to identify participants' pairs with similar personality profiles. Across all the identified pairs of participants, we found a positive correlation between the network similarity and personality similarity, supporting our "similar brain, similar personality" hypothesis. Furthermore, the global personality network can be used to predict the individual subject's responses in the personality questionnaire on an item level. In sum, based on individual brain connectivity pattern, we could predict different facets of personality, and this prediction is not based on localized regions, but rather relies on the individual connectivity pattern in large-scale brain networks.

Inhibitory control is crucial for regulating emotions and may also enable memory control. However, evidence for their shared neurobiological correlates is limited. Here, we report meta-analyses of neuroimaging studies on emotion regulation, or memory control and link neural commonalities to transcriptional commonalities using the Allen Human Brain Atlas (AHBA). Based on 95 functional magnetic resonance imaging studies, we reveal a role of the right inferior parietal lobule embedded in a frontal–parietal–insular network during emotion regulation and memory control, which is similarly recruited during response inhibition. These co-activation patterns also overlap with the networks associated with ‘inhibition’, ‘cognitive control’ and ‘working memory’ when consulting the Neurosynth. Using the AHBA, we demonstrate that emotion regulation- and memory control-related brain activity patterns are associated with transcriptional profiles of a specific set of ‘inhibition-related’ genes. Gene ontology enrichment analysis of these ‘inhibition-related’ genes reveal associations with the neuronal transmission and risk for major psychiatric disorders as well as seizures and alcoholic dependence. In summary, this study identified a neural network and a set of genes associated with inhibitory control across emotion regulation and memory control. These findings facilitate our understanding of the neurobiological correlates of inhibitory control and may contribute to the development of brain stimulation and pharmacological interventions.

How do we encode our continuous life experiences for later retrieval? Theories of event segmentation and integration suggest that the hippocampus binds separately represented events into an ordered narrative. Using a functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) movie watching-recall dataset, we quantified two types of neural similarities (i.e., “activation pattern” similarity and within-region voxel-based “connectivity pattern” similarity) between separate events during movie watching and related them to subsequent retrieval of events as well as retrieval of sequential order. We demonstrated that compared with forgotten events, successfully remembered events were associated with distinct “activation patterns” in the hippocampus and medial prefrontal cortex. In contrast, similar “connectivity pattern” between events were associated with memory formation and were also relevant for retaining events in the correct order. We applied the same approaches to an independent movie watching fMRI dataset as validation and highlighted again the role of hippocampal activation pattern and connectivity pattern in memory formation. We propose that distinct activation patterns represent neural segmentation of events, while similar connectivity patterns encode context information and, therefore, integrate events into a narrative. Our results provide novel evidence for the role of hippocampal-medial prefrontal event segmentation and integration in episodic memory formation of real-life experience.

The ability to suppress unwelcome memories is important for productivity and well-being. Successful memory suppression is associated with hippocampal deactivations and a concomitant disruption of this region’s functionality. Much of the previous neuroimaging literature exploring such suppression-related hippocampal modulations has focused on the region’s negative coupling with the prefrontal cortex. Task-based changes in functional connectivity between the hippocampus and other brain regions still need further exploration. In the present study, we utilize psychophysiological interactions and seed connectome-based predictive modeling to investigate the relationship between the hippocampus and the rest of the brain as 134 participants attempted to suppress unwanted memories during the Think/No-Think task. The results show that during retrieval suppression, the right hippocampus exhibited decreased functional connectivity with visual cortical areas (lingual and cuneus gyrus), left nucleus accumbens and the brain-stem that predicted superior forgetting of unwanted memories on later memory tests. Validation tests verified that prediction performance was not an artifact of head motion or prediction method and that the negative features remained consistent across different brain parcellations. These findings suggest that systemic memory suppression involves more than the modulation of hippocampal activity—it alters functional connectivity patterns between the hippocampus and visual cortex, leading to successful forgetting.

Memories are not stored as static engrams, but as dynamic representations affected by processes occurring after initial encoding. Previous studies revealed changes in activity and mnemonic representations in visual processing areas, parietal lobe, and hippocampus underlying repeated retrieval and suppression. However, these neural changes are usually induced by memory modulation immediately after memory formation. Here, we investigated 27 healthy participants with a two-day functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging study design to probe how established memories are dynamically modulated by retrieval and suppression 24 h after learning. Behaviorally, we demonstrated that established memories can still be strengthened by repeated retrieval. By contrast, repeated suppression had a modest negative effect, and suppression-induced forgetting was associated with individual suppression efficacy. Neurally, we demonstrated item-specific pattern reinstatements in visual processing areas, parietal lobe, and hippocampus. Then, we showed that repeated retrieval reduced activity amplitude in the ventral visual cortex and hippocampus, but enhanced the distinctiveness of activity patterns in the ventral visual cortex and parietal lobe. Critically, reduced activity was associated with enhanced representation of idiosyncratic memory traces in the ventral visual cortex and precuneus. In contrast, repeated memory suppression was associated with reduced lateral prefrontal activity, but relative intact mnemonic representations. Our results replicated most of the neural changes induced by memory retrieval and suppression immediately after learning and extended those findings to established memories after initial consolidation. Active retrieval seems to promote episode-unique mnemonic representations in the neocortex after initial encoding but also consolidation.

Flexible behavior requires switching between different task conditions. It is known that such task switching is associated with costs in terms of slowed RT, reduced accuracy, or both. The neural correlates of task switching have usually been studied by requiring participants to switch between distinct task conditions that recruit different brain networks. Here, we investigated the transition of neural states underlying switching between two opposite memory-related processes (i.e., memory retrieval and memory suppression) in a memory task. We investigated 26 healthy participants who performed a think/no-think task while being in the fMRI scanner. Behaviorally, we show that it was more difficult for participants to suppress unwanted memories when a no-think was preceded by a think trial instead of another no-think trial. Neurally, we demonstrate that think–no-think switches were associated with an increase in control-related and a decrease in memory-related brain activity. Neural representations of task condition, assessed by decoding accuracy, were lower immediately after task switching compared with the nonswitch transitions, suggesting a switch-induced delay in the neural transition toward the required task condition. This suggestion is corroborated by an association between condition-specific representational strength and condition-specific performance in switch trials. Taken together, we provided neural evidence from the time-resolved decoding approach to support the notion that carryover of the previous task set activation is associated with the switching cost, leading to less successful memory suppression.