TY - JOUR
T1 - Medial temporal lobe coding of item and spatial information during relational binding in working memory
AU - Libby, Laura A.
AU - Hannula, Deborah E.
AU - Ranganath, Charan
PY - 2014/10/22
Y1 - 2014/10/22
N2 - Several models have proposed that different medial temporal lobe (MTL) regions represent different kinds of information in the service of long-term memory. For instance, it has been proposed that perirhinal cortex (PRC), parahippocampal cortex (PHC), and hippocampus differentially support long-term memory for item information, spatial context, and item–context relations present during an event, respectively. Recent evidence has indicated that, in addition to long-term memory, MTL subregions may similarly contribute to processes that support the retention of complex spatial arrangements of objects across short delays. Here, we used functional magnetic resonance imaging and multivoxel pattern similarity analysis to investigate the extent to which human MTL regions independently code for object and spatial information, as well as the conjunction of this information, during working memory encoding and active maintenance. Voxel activity patterns in PRC, temporopolar cortex, and amygdala carried information about individual objects, whereas activity patterns in the PHC and posterior hippocampus carried information about the configuration of spatial locations that was to be remembered. Additionally, the integrity of multivoxel patterns in the right anterior hippocampus across encoding and delay periods was predictive of accurate short-term memory for object–location relationships. These results are consistent with parallel processing of item and spatial context information by PRC and PHC, respectively, and the binding of item and context by the hippocampus.
AB - Several models have proposed that different medial temporal lobe (MTL) regions represent different kinds of information in the service of long-term memory. For instance, it has been proposed that perirhinal cortex (PRC), parahippocampal cortex (PHC), and hippocampus differentially support long-term memory for item information, spatial context, and item–context relations present during an event, respectively. Recent evidence has indicated that, in addition to long-term memory, MTL subregions may similarly contribute to processes that support the retention of complex spatial arrangements of objects across short delays. Here, we used functional magnetic resonance imaging and multivoxel pattern similarity analysis to investigate the extent to which human MTL regions independently code for object and spatial information, as well as the conjunction of this information, during working memory encoding and active maintenance. Voxel activity patterns in PRC, temporopolar cortex, and amygdala carried information about individual objects, whereas activity patterns in the PHC and posterior hippocampus carried information about the configuration of spatial locations that was to be remembered. Additionally, the integrity of multivoxel patterns in the right anterior hippocampus across encoding and delay periods was predictive of accurate short-term memory for object–location relationships. These results are consistent with parallel processing of item and spatial context information by PRC and PHC, respectively, and the binding of item and context by the hippocampus.
KW - FMRI
KW - Hippocampus
KW - Multivoxel pattern
KW - Parahippocampal
KW - Perirhinal
KW - Working memory
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84908065914&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=84908065914&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1523/JNEUROSCI.0655-14.2014
DO - 10.1523/JNEUROSCI.0655-14.2014
M3 - Article
C2 - 25339737
AN - SCOPUS:84908065914
VL - 34
SP - 14233
EP - 14242
JO - Journal of Neuroscience
JF - Journal of Neuroscience
SN - 0270-6474
IS - 43
ER -