Individual susceptibility to TMS affirms the precuneal role in meta-memory upon recollection

A recent virtual-lesion study using inhibitory repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) confirmed the causal behavioral relevance of the precuneus in the evaluation of one’s own memory performance (aka mnemonic metacognition). This study’s goal is to elucidate how these TMS-induced neuromodulatory effects might relate to the neural correlates and be modulated by individual anatomical profiles in relation to meta-memory. In a within-subjects design, we assessed the impact of 20-min rTMS over the precuneus, compared to the vertex, across three magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) neuro-profiles on 18 healthy subjects during a memory versus a perceptual task. Task-based functional MRI revealed that BOLD signal magnitude in the precuneus is associated with variation in individual meta-memory efficiency. Moreover, individuals with higher resting-state functional connectivity (rs-fcMRI) between the precuneus and the hippocampus, or smaller gray matter volume in the stimulated precuneal region exhibit considerably higher vulnerability to the TMS effect. These effects were not observed in the perceptual domain. Thus, we provide compelling evidence in outlining a possible circuit encompassing the precuneus and its mnemonic midbrain neighbor the hippocampus at the service of realizing our meta-awareness during memory recollection of episodic details.