BrainBlog

Haramati S, Soroker N, Dudai Y, & Levy DA. The posterior parietal cortex in recognition memory: A neuropsychological study. Neuropsychologia. 2007 Nov 29 [Epub ahead of print] Department of Neurobiology, Weizmann Institute of Science, P.O. Box 26, Rehovot 76100, Israel. Several recent functional neuroimaging studies have reported robust bilateral activation (L>R) in lateral posterior parietal cortex and precuneus during recognition memory retrieval tasks. It has not yet been determined what cognitive processes are represented by those activations. In order to examine whether parietal lobe-based processes are necessary for basic episodic recognition abilities, we tested a group of 17 first-incident CVA patients whose cortical damage included (but was not limited to) extensive unilateral posterior parietal lesions. These patients performed a series of tasks that yielded parietal activations in previous fMRI studies: yes/no recognition judgments on visual words and on colored obj...