Toward a more integrative cognitive neuroscience of episodic memory
The cognitive neuroscience of episodic memory is rapidly expanding its scope to comprehensively investigate both local specialization of function and complex, distributed functional interactions. Doing so necessitates building from general univariate models of neural activations to a more advanced science that accounts for the coordinated engagement of a broad set of cortical and subcortical regions. The inclusion of network theory into the cognitive neuroscience of episodic memory is changing how we understand the organization and dynamics of these cognitive and behavioral processes. Nonetheless, graph theoretical approaches to human neuroscience were largely developed and implemented outside of the cognitive neurosciences, and there is now some disconnect between researchers employing different methods. Here, we first delineate what different methodologies broadly offer, and we highlight their respective advantages and disadvantages. Next, we argue that, by adopting a multivariate network approach, new and unique insights can be obtained into the neural underpinnings of episodic memory. Finally, we use the progression of the summarized research to point toward a future for the cognitive network neuroscience of episodic memory that emphasizes distributed, integrative information processing in addition to more segregated, localized information processing.