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Anatomic subdivisions in human temporal cortical neuronal activity related to recent verbal memory

Nature Neuroscience volume 5, pages 64–71 (2002)Cite this article

Abstract

We identified functional anatomical subdivisions of human lateral and basal temporal cortex related to recent verbal memory for object names, text and auditory words. Extracellular neuronal activity was recorded during memory encoding compared to identification, during encoding, storage or recall retrieval stages of the memory task, during recognition memory, and during implicit memory as measured by repetition priming. Changes in frequency of activity during encoding were recorded from most neurons. In lateral temporal cortex, these encoding changes in the dominant hemisphere were more likely to be polymodal, whereas those in nondominant hemisphere were unimodal. There was substantial separation of neurons with changes in other aspects of memory, defining additional subdivisions. Inferior lateral and basal cortex were related to memory stages, and superior–posterior lateral cortex was related to implicit and recognition memory.

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Figure 1: Regions of human temporal lobe where microelectrode recordings were obtained.
Figure 2: Neuronal activity related to encoding.
Figure 3: Change in neuronal activity during encoding for only one modality, presented as in Fig. 2.
Figure 4: Neuronal activity related to retrieval stage of explicit memory task, for auditory, picture or text items.
Figure 5: Neuronal activity related to storage stage of explicit memory task for nameable object pictures.
Figure 6: Neuronal activity related to a repetition priming measure of implicit memory for object names.
Figure 7: Neuronal activity during recognition memory and recall retrieval for named object pictures.

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Acknowledgements

Supported by NIH Grant NS 36527 and a McDonnell-Pew Cognitive Neuroscience Grant. E. Lettich prepared some of the illustrations and assisted in the recordings. H. Cho also contributed to preparation of the illustrations.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Neurological Surgery, Box 356470, University of Washington, Seattle, 98195, Washington, USA

    G. A. Ojemann & J. Schoenfield-McNeill

  2. Department of Psychology, University of Washington, Seattle, 98195, Washington, USA

    D. P. Corina

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  1. G. A. Ojemann
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  2. J. Schoenfield-McNeill
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  3. D. P. Corina
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Correspondence to G. A. Ojemann.

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Ojemann, G., Schoenfield-McNeill, J. & Corina, D. Anatomic subdivisions in human temporal cortical neuronal activity related to recent verbal memory. Nat Neurosci 5, 64–71 (2002). https://doi.org/10.1038/nn785

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