Dissociation of frontal and medial temporal lobe activity in maintenance and binding of sequentially presented paired associates.

Full Abstract

Substructures of the prefrontal cortex (PFC) and the medial-temporal lobe are critical for associating objects presented over time. Previous studies showing frontal and medial-temporal involvement in associative encoding have not addressed the response specificity of these regions to different aspects of the task, which include instructions to associate and binding of stimuli. This study used a novel paradigm to temporally separate these two components of the task by sequential presentation of individual images with or without associative instruction; fMRI was used to investigate the temporal involvement of the PFC and the parahippocampal cortex in encoding each component. Although both regions showed an enhanced response to the second stimulus of a pair, only the PFC had increased activation during the delay preceding a stimulus when associative instruction was given. These findings present new evidence that prefrontal and medial-temporal regions provide distinct temporal contributions during associative memory formation.

Author information

Author/s: Hales, Jena B (JB); Israel, Sarah L (SL); Swann, Nicole C (NC); Brewer, James B (JB);

Affiliation: University of California, San Diego, USA.

Grants: K23 NS050305 (Agency:NINDS NIH HHS)

Journal and publication information

Publication Type: Journal Article; Research Support, N.I.H., Extramural; Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

Journal: Journal of cognitive neuroscience (J Cogn Neurosci), published in United States. (Language: eng)

Reference: 2009-Jul; vol 21 (issue 7) : pp 1244-54

Dates: Created 2009/04/27; Completed 2009/08/12;

PMID: 18752401, status: MEDLINE (last retrieval date: 8/21/2009, IMS Date: )

Sourced from the National Library of Medicine. Abstract text and other information may be subject to copyright.

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