Skip to main content
PMC home page
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America logoLink to Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
. 1994 Mar 15;91(6):2008–2011. doi: 10.1073/pnas.91.6.2008

Neuroanatomical correlates of encoding in episodic memory: levels of processing effect.

S Kapur 1, F I Craik 1, E Tulving 1, A A Wilson 1, S Houle 1, G M Brown 1
PMCID: PMC43298  PMID: 8134340

Abstract

Cognitive studies of memory processes demonstrate that memory for stimuli is a function of how they are encoded; stimuli processed semantically are better remembered than those processed in a perceptual or shallow fashion. This study investigates the neural correlates of this cognitive phenomenon. Twelve subjects performed two different cognitive tasks on a series of visually presented nouns. In one task, subjects detected the presence or absence of the letter a; in the other, subjects categorized each noun as living or nonliving. Positron emission tomography (PET) scans using 15O-labeled water were obtained during both tasks. Subjects showed substantially better recognition memory for nouns seen in the living/nonliving task, compared to nouns seen in the a-checking task. Comparison of the PET images between the two cognitive tasks revealed a significant activation in the left inferior prefrontal cortex (Brodmann's areas 45, 46, 47, and 10) in the semantic task as compared to the perceptual task. We propose that memory processes are subserved by a wide neurocognitive network and that encoding processes involve preferential activation of the structures in the left inferior prefrontal cortex.

Full text

PDF

Selected References

These references are in PubMed. This may not be the complete list of references from this article.

  1. Fox P. T., Mintun M. A. Noninvasive functional brain mapping by change-distribution analysis of averaged PET images of H215O tissue activity. J Nucl Med. 1989 Feb;30(2):141–149. [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  2. Friston K. J., Frith C. D., Liddle P. F., Dolan R. J., Lammertsma A. A., Frackowiak R. S. The relationship between global and local changes in PET scans. J Cereb Blood Flow Metab. 1990 Jul;10(4):458–466. doi: 10.1038/jcbfm.1990.88. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  3. Friston K. J., Frith C. D., Liddle P. F., Frackowiak R. S. Comparing functional (PET) images: the assessment of significant change. J Cereb Blood Flow Metab. 1991 Jul;11(4):690–699. doi: 10.1038/jcbfm.1991.122. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  4. Friston K. J., Frith C. D., Liddle P. F., Frackowiak R. S. Plastic transformation of PET images. J Comput Assist Tomogr. 1991 Jul-Aug;15(4):634–639. doi: 10.1097/00004728-199107000-00020. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  5. Friston K. J., Passingham R. E., Nutt J. G., Heather J. D., Sawle G. V., Frackowiak R. S. Localisation in PET images: direct fitting of the intercommissural (AC-PC) line. J Cereb Blood Flow Metab. 1989 Oct;9(5):690–695. doi: 10.1038/jcbfm.1989.97. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  6. Frith C. D., Friston K. J., Liddle P. F., Frackowiak R. S. A PET study of word finding. Neuropsychologia. 1991;29(12):1137–1148. doi: 10.1016/0028-3932(91)90029-8. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  7. Frith C. D., Friston K., Liddle P. F., Frackowiak R. S. Willed action and the prefrontal cortex in man: a study with PET. Proc Biol Sci. 1991 Jun 22;244(1311):241–246. doi: 10.1098/rspb.1991.0077. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  8. Grasby P. M., Frith C. D., Friston K. J., Bench C., Frackowiak R. S., Dolan R. J. Functional mapping of brain areas implicated in auditory--verbal memory function. Brain. 1993 Feb;116(Pt 1):1–20. doi: 10.1093/brain/116.1.1. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  9. Herscovitch P., Markham J., Raichle M. E. Brain blood flow measured with intravenous H2(15)O. I. Theory and error analysis. J Nucl Med. 1983 Sep;24(9):782–789. [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  10. Mesulam M. M. Large-scale neurocognitive networks and distributed processing for attention, language, and memory. Ann Neurol. 1990 Nov;28(5):597–613. doi: 10.1002/ana.410280502. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  11. Oldfield R. C. The assessment and analysis of handedness: the Edinburgh inventory. Neuropsychologia. 1971 Mar;9(1):97–113. doi: 10.1016/0028-3932(71)90067-4. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  12. Pardo J. V., Fox P. T., Raichle M. E. Localization of a human system for sustained attention by positron emission tomography. Nature. 1991 Jan 3;349(6304):61–64. doi: 10.1038/349061a0. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  13. Pardo J. V., Pardo P. J., Raichle M. E. Neural correlates of self-induced dysphoria. Am J Psychiatry. 1993 May;150(5):713–719. doi: 10.1176/ajp.150.5.713. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  14. Petersen S. E., Fiez J. A. The processing of single words studied with positron emission tomography. Annu Rev Neurosci. 1993;16:509–530. doi: 10.1146/annurev.ne.16.030193.002453. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  15. Petersen S. E., Fox P. T., Posner M. I., Mintun M., Raichle M. E. Positron emission tomographic studies of the cortical anatomy of single-word processing. Nature. 1988 Feb 18;331(6157):585–589. doi: 10.1038/331585a0. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  16. Posner M. I., Petersen S. E., Fox P. T., Raichle M. E. Localization of cognitive operations in the human brain. Science. 1988 Jun 17;240(4859):1627–1631. doi: 10.1126/science.3289116. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  17. Squire L. R., Ojemann J. G., Miezin F. M., Petersen S. E., Videen T. O., Raichle M. E. Activation of the hippocampus in normal humans: a functional anatomical study of memory. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 1992 Mar 1;89(5):1837–1841. doi: 10.1073/pnas.89.5.1837. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  18. Tulving E., Kapur S., Craik F. I., Moscovitch M., Houle S. Hemispheric encoding/retrieval asymmetry in episodic memory: positron emission tomography findings. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 1994 Mar 15;91(6):2016–2020. doi: 10.1073/pnas.91.6.2016. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  19. Tulving E., Kapur S., Markowitsch H. J., Craik F. I., Habib R., Houle S. Neuroanatomical correlates of retrieval in episodic memory: auditory sentence recognition. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 1994 Mar 15;91(6):2012–2015. doi: 10.1073/pnas.91.6.2012. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  20. Wise R., Chollet F., Hadar U., Friston K., Hoffner E., Frackowiak R. Distribution of cortical neural networks involved in word comprehension and word retrieval. Brain. 1991 Aug;114(Pt 4):1803–1817. doi: 10.1093/brain/114.4.1803. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]

Articles from Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America are provided here courtesy of National Academy of Sciences

RESOURCES