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Memory signals are temporally dissociated in and across human hippocampus and perirhinal cortex

Nature Neuroscience volume 15, pages 1167–1173 (2012)Cite this article

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Abstract

In the endeavor to understand how our brains enable our multifaceted memories, much controversy surrounds the contributions of the hippocampus and perirhinal cortex (PrC). We recorded functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) in healthy controls and intracranial electroencephalography (EEG) in patients during a recognition memory task. Although conventional fMRI analysis showed indistinguishable roles of the hippocampus and PrC in familiarity-based item recognition and recollection-based source retrieval, event-related fMRI and EEG time courses revealed a clear temporal dissociation of memory signals in and across these regions. An early source retrieval effect was followed by a late, post-decision item novelty effect in hippocampus, whereas an early item novelty effect was followed by a sustained source retrieval effect in PrC. Although factors such as memory strength were not experimentally controlled, the temporal pattern across regions suggests that a rapid item recognition signal in PrC triggers a source retrieval process in the hippocampus, which in turn recruits PrC representations and/or mechanisms, evidenced here by increased hippocampal-PrC coupling during source recognition.

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Figure 1: Methods and design.
Figure 2: fMRI results for hippocampus and PrC.
Figure 3: iEEG results for hippocampus and PrC.
Figure 4: Temporal sequence of iEEG item and source effects in PrC and hippocampus.
Figure 5: Functional coupling between hippocampus and PrC increases during source recognition (source recognition versus item recognition).

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Acknowledgements

We thank A. Greve for helpful discussion. This work was supported by a Sir Henry Wellcome Postdoctoral Fellowship to B.P.S., the UK Medical Research Council Program (MC_A060_5PR10 to R.N.H.) and the German Research Foundation (DFG FE 366/5-1 to A.T.A.D.L.)

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Medical Research Council Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit, Cambridge, UK

    Bernhard P Staresina & Richard N Henson

  2. Department of Epileptology, University of Bonn, Bonn, Germany

    Bernhard P Staresina, Juergen Fell, Anne T A Do Lam & Nikolai Axmacher

  3. German Center of Neurodegenerative Diseases (DZNE), Bonn, Germany

    Nikolai Axmacher

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Contributions

B.P.S. and R.N.H. designed the research. B.P.S., N.A., J.F. and R.N.H. wrote the manuscript. B.P.S. conducted the experiments and analyzed the data. A.T.A.D.L. assisted in conducting the iEEG experiments.

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Correspondence to Bernhard P Staresina.

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Staresina, B., Fell, J., Do Lam, A. et al. Memory signals are temporally dissociated in and across human hippocampus and perirhinal cortex. Nat Neurosci 15, 1167–1173 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1038/nn.3154

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