Episodic memory retrieval is characterised by the vivid reinstatement of information about a personally-experienced event. Growing evidence suggests that this reinstatement is supported by reductions in the spectral power of alpha/beta activity. Given that the amount of information that can be recalled depends on the amount of information that was originally encoded, information-based accounts of alpha/beta activity would suggest that retrieval-related alpha/beta power decreases similarly depend upon decreases in alpha/beta power during encoding. To test this hypothesis, seventeen human participants completed a sequence-learning task while undergoing concurrent MEG recordings. Regression-based analyses were then used to estimate how alpha/beta power decreases during encoding predicted alpha/beta power decreases during retrieval on a trial-by-trial basis. When subjecting these parameter estimates to group-level analysis, we find evidence to suggest that retrieval-related alpha/beta (7–15Hz) power decreases fluctuate as a function of encoding-related alpha/beta power decreases. These results suggest that retrieval-related alpha/beta power decreases are contingent on the decrease in alpha/beta power that arose during encoding. Subsequent analysis uncovered no evidence to suggest that these alpha/beta power decreases reflect stimulus identity, indicating that the contingency between encoding- and retrieval-related alpha/beta power reflects the reinstatement of a neurophysiological operation, rather than neural representation, during episodic memory retrieval.

情景记忆检索的特征是生动地恢复了有关个人经历事件的信息。越来越多的证据表明，α/β活性的光谱功率降低支持了这种恢复。假定可以回忆起的信息量取决于最初编码的信息量，基于信息的Alpha / Beta活性说明将表明，与检索相关的Alpha / Beta功率的降低类似地取决于Alpha / Beta功率的降低在编码过程中。为了检验该假设，十七名人类参与者在同时进行MEG记录的同时完成了序列学习任务。然后，基于回归的分析用于估计在编码过程中alpha / beta功率如何降低，预测的alpha / beta功率在逐次尝试的检索过程中如何降低。在对这些参数估计值进行组级分析时，我们发现证据表明与检索相关的alpha / beta（7–15Hz）功率降低随编码相关的alpha / beta功率降低而波动。这些结果表明，与检索相关的alpha / beta功率降低取决于编码期间出现的alpha / beta功率降低。随后的分析未发现任何证据表明这些α/β功率降低反映了刺激的同一性，表明编码和检索相关的α/β功率之间的偶然性反映了神经生理学操作的恢复，