Skip Navigation


Cerebral Cortex Advance Access originally published online on January 15, 2009
Cerebral Cortex 2009 19(9):2114-2130; doi:10.1093/cercor/bhn236
This Article
Right arrow Full Text Freely available
Right arrow FREE Full Text (PDF) Freely available
Right arrowOA All Versions of this Article:
19/9/2114    most recent
bhn236v1
Right arrow Alert me when this article is cited
Right arrow Alert me if a correction is posted
Services
Right arrow Email this article to a friend
Right arrow Similar articles in this journal
Right arrow Similar articles in PubMed
Right arrow Alert me to new issues of the journal
Right arrow Add to My Personal Archive
Right arrow Download to citation manager
Google Scholar
Right arrow Articles by Muñoz, M.
Right arrow Articles by Saunders, R. C.
PubMed
Right arrow PubMed Citation
Right arrow Articles by Muñoz, M.
Right arrow Articles by Saunders, R. C.
Social Bookmarking
Add to CiteULike   Add to Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us  
What's this?

Published by Oxford University Press 2009.
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/2.0/uk/) which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Resection of the Medial Temporal Lobe Disconnects the Rostral Superior Temporal Gyrus from Some of its Projection Targets in the Frontal Lobe and Thalamus

Monica Muñoz, Mortimer Mishkin and Richard C. Saunders

Laboratory of Neuropsychology, National Institute of Mental Health, NIH, Building 49, Room 1B80, 49 Convent Drive, Bethesda, MD 20892-4415, USA

Address correspondence to Monica Muñoz, Institute of Child Health, 30 Guilford Street, London WC1N 1EH, UK. Email: monica.munoz{at}ich.ucl.ac.uk.

Auditory memory in the monkey does not appear to extend beyond the limits of working memory. It is therefore surprising that this ability is impaired by medial temporal lobe (MTL) resections, because such lesions spare working memory in other sensory modalities. To determine whether MTL ablations might have caused the auditory deficit through inadvertent transection of superior temporal gyrus (STG) projections to its downstream targets, and, if so, which targets might have been compromised, we injected anterograde tracer (biotinylated dextran amine) in the STG of both the normal and MTL-lesioned hemispheres of split-brain monkeys. Interhemispheric comparison of label failed to show any effect of the MTL ablation on efferents from caudal STG, which projects to the inferior prefrontal convexity. However, the ablation did consistently interrupt the normally dense projections from rostral STG to both the ventral medial prefrontal cortex and medial thalamic nuclei. The findings support the possibility that the auditory working memory deficit after MTL ablation is due to transection of downstream auditory projections, and indicate that the candidate structures for mediating auditory working memory are the ventral medial prefrontal cortical areas, the medial thalamus, or both.

Key Words: auditory cortex • auditory memory • disconnection • frontal cortex • Macaca mulatta


Add to CiteULike CiteULike   Add to Connotea Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us Del.icio.us    What's this?




Disclaimer: Please note that abstracts for content published before 1996 were created through digital scanning and may therefore not exactly replicate the text of the original print issues. All efforts have been made to ensure accuracy, but the Publisher will not be held responsible for any remaining inaccuracies. If you require any further clarification, please contact our Customer Services Department.