Do medial temporal lobe regions play a domain-specific or domain-independent role in perceptual learning performance?

Abstract

Event Abstract Back to Event Do medial temporal lobe regions play a domain-specific or domain-independent role in perceptual learning performance? Matthew E. Mundy1*, Paul Downing2, Rob Honey3, Dominic Dwyer3 and Kim Graham3 1 Monash University, Australia 2 Bangor University, United Kingdom 3 Cardiff University, United Kingdom Background It is contentious whether structures in the human medial temporal lobe (MTL) play a domain-specific or domain-independent role in learning and memory. Perceptual learning has been used as a tool to investigate this critical cognitive junction. Methods In a series of event related fMRI experiments, participants made repeated same/different judgements to previously seen and initially novel confusable pairs of dot patterns, faces and complex scenes. Using a series of orthogonal, and independent, functional localisers, clusters of stimulus-selective, novelty-sensitive voxels were identified in two medial temporal regions (perirhinal cortex and posterior hippocampus), and two extrastriate regions (fusiform face area, FFA, and parahippocampal place area, PPA). We asked how activity in these regions was influenced by discrimination accuracy and by trial repetition (e.g., adaptation). Results In contrast to FFA and PPA, which only cared about preferred category, activity in perirhinal cortex and posterior hippocampus predicted discrimination accuracy for faces and scenes, respectively. MTL regions also adapted less rapidly than extrastriate areas over trial repetition, with difference emerging between extrastriate and MTL regions after 8 repetitions. Structural differences were also recorded in these regions, along with caudate and thalamic areas; the size of these differences correlated with performance. Discussion These findings, supported by our recent work with MTL lesioned patients and a second fMRI investigation directly modulating stimulus ambiguity, show that domain-specific patterns of responding in the human brain are not just restricted to extrastriate cortex, and highlight a key role for perirhinal cortex and posterior hippocampus, but not FFA and PPA, in storing feature ambiguous representations of faces and scenes, respectively. Keywords: faces, scenes, Perceptual Learning, Memory, Amnesia, Medial Temporal Lobes, fMRI Conference: ACNS-2013 Australasian Cognitive Neuroscience Society Conference, Clayton, Melbourne, Australia, 28 Nov - 1 Dec, 2013. Presentation Type: Oral Topic: Memory Citation: Mundy ME, Downing P, Honey R, Dwyer D and Graham K (2013). Do medial temporal lobe regions play a domain-specific or domain-independent role in perceptual learning performance?. Conference Abstract: ACNS-2013 Australasian Cognitive Neuroscience Society Conference. doi: 10.3389/conf.fnhum.2013.212.00192 Copyright: The abstracts in this collection have not been subject to any Frontiers peer review or checks, and are not endorsed by Frontiers. They are made available through the Frontiers publishing platform as a service to conference organizers and presenters. The copyright in the individual abstracts is owned by the author of each abstract or his/her employer unless otherwise stated. Each abstract, as well as the collection of abstracts, are published under a Creative Commons CC-BY 4.0 (attribution) licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) and may thus be reproduced, translated, adapted and be the subject of derivative works provided the authors and Frontiers are attributed. For Frontiers’ terms and conditions please see https://www.frontiersin.org/legal/terms-and-conditions. Received: 15 Oct 2013; Published Online: 25 Nov 2013. * Correspondence: Dr. Matthew E Mundy, Monash University, Melbourne, Australia, matthew.mundy@monash.edu Login Required This action requires you to be registered with Frontiers and logged in. To register or login click here. Abstract Info Abstract The Authors in Frontiers Matthew E Mundy Paul Downing Rob Honey Dominic Dwyer Kim Graham Google Matthew E Mundy Paul Downing Rob Honey Dominic Dwyer Kim Graham Google Scholar Matthew E Mundy Paul Downing Rob Honey Dominic Dwyer Kim Graham PubMed Matthew E Mundy Paul Downing Rob Honey Dominic Dwyer Kim Graham Related Article in Frontiers Google Scholar PubMed Abstract Close Back to top Javascript is disabled. Please enable Javascript in your browser settings in order to see all the content on this page.