Novelty, surprise, and their long-lasting effects on episodic memory

How does the brain strengthen memories in response to novel experiences and expectation violations? This talk will present converging evidence from two lines of research investigating novelty-driven memory enhancement through hippocampal-midbrain dopaminergic mechanisms. First, I will present evidence from an fMRI study, showing that the capacity to process novelty and surprise may have long-lasting protective effects across the lifespan: superagers, older adults with exceptional memory performance, maintain superior hippocampal and midbrain responses to expectation violations compared to age-matched typical older adults. I will then present findings from a VR experiment demonstrating that younger adults show behavioural tagging effects, whereby novel environment exploration retroactively enhances memories of events that occurred just before the novel experience. This suggests that immersive, unpredictable environments can 'rescue' memory traces. Together, this work highlights the importance of novelty and surprise in both strengthening memory through retroactive enhancement and fostering resilience to cognitive ageing.