Contributions of frontal and medial temporal regions to verbal episodic memory: A PET study

Using PET, subtraction and correlation analysis were jointly employed to de termine the specific and complementary contributions of frontal and medial temporal regions to verbal episodic encoding and retrieval processes. Subtr action analysis highlighted prefrontal rCBF increases which were predominan tly left-sided during intentional encoding and exclusively right-sided duri ng retrieval, the latter being moreover associated with bilateral precuneus activation. However, significant correlation between rCBF values obtained during intentional encoding and performance scores obtained during retrieva l concerned, among other regions, the left parahippocampal gyrus, which ind icated;that the higher the neuronal activity in this medial temporal region during encoding, the better the retrieval performance. NeuroReport 12:1737 -1741 (C) 2001 Lippincott Williams & Wilkins.