• Some Gross Anatomy

• Medial temporal lobe structures
– Hippocampus
– Parahippocampus (entorhinal cortex)
• Hippocampus and episodic memory
– Encoding and consolidation of declarative memory
– Role in recent LTM retrieval
– Damage leads to “classic” amnesia: severe anterograde declarative deficit
– LH verbal, RH spatial?

• Lateral temporal lobe structures
– retrieval of declarative memory?
– Representation of semantic knowledge?
– “convergence zones” that index the attributes of an episode?
• Frontal lobe structures
– Lateral regions linked to working memory
– Medial regions linked to executive control and attention
– Anterior areas most involved in memory function (prefrontal, basal forebrain)
– Role in strategic aspects of memory
• Left: encoding, right: retrieval? (HERA)
– Damage leads to deficits in “effortful” aspects of remembering, confabulation

• Brewer, et al. (1998)
– Ss shown color pictures
– Scans sorted by later memory
– Several areas show memoryspecific activation patterns

• Diencephalon
– Thalamus, Hypothalamus,
Mammilary Bodies
– Close links to frontal, prefrontal cortex
– Role in activation of retrieval process
– Damage can lead to amnesia that resembles hippocampal syndrome
• Basal Ganglia, Cerebellum
– Storage, activation of procedural skill and memory
– Damage leads to apraxia, deficits in the initiation and control of action
• “Association” cortices
– More “abstracted” than sensory regions
– Representation of sensory-motor aspects of memories?

• Introducing the Precuneus
– Late-maturing association cortex
– Just behind Cingulate Gyrus
– Highly connected with prefrontal cortex and subcortical structures
– High metabolism at rest
– Early site of increase in abnormal betaamyloids in Alzheimer’s
• Imaging the Precuneus
– Visuo-spatial imagery and attention
• Imagined route-taking
– Episodic and autobiographical memory retrieval
• Source memory for stimuli
• Family photo recognition
– “self-relevant” processes?
• 1 st vs 3 rd -person short stories
• Judgments on one’s own traits

The Basal Ganglia - closeup

Precuneus
Cingulate gyrus