QUICK SEARCH:   [advanced] Author: Keyword(s): Year:  Vol:  Page:

HOME  |   SEARCH  |   ARCHIVE  |   SUBSCRIBE  |   CONTACT  |   HELP

The Journal of Neuroscience, January 2, 2008, 28(1):116-124; doi:10.1523/JNEUROSCI.3086-07.2008

This Article Full Text Full Text (PDF) Supplemental Data Submit an eLetter Alert me when this article is cited Alert me when eLetters are posted Alert me if a correction is posted Citation Map Services Email this article to a friend Related articles in J. Neurosci. Similar articles in this journal Similar articles in ISI Web of Science Similar articles in PubMed Alert me to new issues of the journal Download to citation manager Citing Articles Citing Articles via HighWire Citing Articles via ISI Web of Science (1) Citing Articles via Google Scholar Google Scholar Articles by Hannula, D. E. Articles by Ranganath, C. Search for Related Content PubMed PubMed Citation Articles by Hannula, D. E. Articles by Ranganath, C.

 Previous Article  |  Next Article 

Behavioral/Systems/Cognitive
Medial Temporal Lobe Activity Predicts Successful Relational Memory Binding

Deborah E. Hannula and Charan Ranganath

Center for Neuroscience, University of California, Davis, California 95618

Correspondence should be addressed to Deborah Hannula, Center for Neuroscience, University of California, 1544 Newton Court, Davis, CA 95618. Email: dehannula{at}ucdavis.edu

Previous neuropsychological findings have implicated medial temporal lobe (MTL) structures in retaining object-location relations over the course of short delays, but MTL effects have not always been reported in neuroimaging investigations with similar short-term memory requirements. Here, we used event-related functional magnetic resonance imaging to test the hypothesis that the hippocampus and related MTL structures support accurate retention of relational memory representations, even across short delays. On every trial, four objects were presented, each in one of nine possible locations of a three-dimensional grid. Participants were to mentally rotate the grid and then maintain the rotated representation in anticipation of a test stimulus: a rendering of the grid, rotated 90° from the original viewpoint. The test stimulus was either a "match" display, in which object-location relations were intact, or a "mismatch" display, in which one object occupied a new, previously unfilled location (mismatch position), or two objects had swapped locations (mismatch swap). Encoding phase activation in anterior and posterior regions of the left hippocampus, and in bilateral perirhinal cortex, predicted subsequent accuracy on the short-term memory decision, as did bilateral posterior hippocampal activity after the test stimulus. Notably, activation in these posterior hippocampal regions was also sensitive to the degree to which object-location bindings were preserved in the test stimulus; activation was greatest for match displays, followed by mismatch-position displays, and finally mismatch-swap displays. These results indicate that the hippocampus and related MTL structures contribute to successful encoding and retrieval of relational information in visual short-term memory.

Key words: medial temporal lobes; hippocampus; entorhinal cortex; perirhinal cortex; short-term memory; working memory; spatial memory

---

Received March 16, 2007; revised Oct. 10, 2007; accepted Nov. 14, 2007.

Correspondence should be addressed to Deborah Hannula, Center for Neuroscience, University of California, 1544 Newton Court, Davis, CA 95618. Email: dehannula{at}ucdavis.edu

Related articles in J. Neurosci.:

Short-Term Memory and the Human Hippocampus

Dharshan Kumaran
J. Neurosci. 2008 28: 3837-3838. [Full Text]  

This article has been cited by other articles:

				D. Kumaran Short-Term Memory and the Human Hippocampus J. Neurosci., April 9, 2008; 28(15): 3837 - 3838. [Full Text] [PDF]

Home  |   Search  |   Archive  |   Subscribe  |   Contact  |   Help