” So rather of collecting information from various people, we gathered a lot of data from the same people, which dramatically increased the anatomical accuracy of our research study. We integrated our proficiency in high-field imaging, neuroanatomy, and cognitive neuroscience and examined MTL anatomy in fantastic information. This enabled us to recognize cortical networks associated with the human median temporal lobe that were unidentified to previous human memory research study.”
Daniel Reznik concludes and includes: “Similar cortical networks also exist in animals and perhaps the most exciting finding is that we have now evidence for possibly brand-new cortical paths in the human memory system compared to non-human primates.”
Christian Doeller, Director of the Department of Psychology at MPI CBS, includes, “These brand-new findings are crucial considering that even after many years of research into human memory, no one truly knew how the regions in the MTL are linked with the rest of the human brain. Our discovery specifies the physiological constraints within which human memory functions run and are informative for studying the evolutionary development of temporal lobe circuitry in different types.
Daniel Reznik includes: “Since one of the networks linked to the human entorhinal cortex is likewise associated with social processing, we suspect that it is an evolutionarily young network that might have developed after the comprehensive expansion of the cortex in humans.”
Reference: “Dissociating distinct cortical networks associated with subregions of the human medial temporal lobe using accuracy neuroimaging” by Daniel Reznik, Robert Trampel, Nikolaus Weiskopf, Menno P. Witter and Christian F. Doeller, 29 June 2023, Neuron.DOI: 10.1016/ j.neuron.2023.05.029.
By Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences
September 21, 2023
Prior research studies that were using group-averaged information, blurred great physiological details between different subregions of the human MTL that are located in close proximity to each other. Christian Doeller, Director of the Department of Psychology at MPI CBS, adds, “These brand-new findings are important because even after numerous years of research into human memory, no one really understood how the areas in the MTL are connected with the rest of the human brain. Our discovery specifies the physiological constraints within which human memory functions run and are useful for studying the evolutionary advancement of temporal lobe circuitry in various species. Information from non-human primates show just slight connections in between the entorhinal cortex and the frontal cortex in contrast– in contrast, we discovered that these connections are more noticable in people.”
The human median temporal lobe (MTL), crucial for memory, varies significantly across people making its research study challenging. A recent study utilized thorough imaging on specific subjects to find new cortical networks related to the MTL, exposing insights into human memory and potential evolutionary advancements.
The medial temporal lobe (MTL) houses the human memory system. Broadly, it includes the hippocampus, parahippocampal cortex, perirhinal cortex, and entorhinal cortex.
” One big challenge in studying the MTL is its fantastic anatomical variability across people. Prior studies that were utilizing group-averaged data, blurred fine anatomical information in between various subregions of the human MTL that are situated in close distance to each other. It resembles studying face structure by balancing 1000 different faces together. We will get essential organizational principles of a face– where the eyes and the nose lie, where the mouth is, however we will totally lose distinctive important details,” explains the studys first author, Daniel Reznik of MPI CBS.
According to him another challenge in studying the MTL in humans is that this brain region is strongly impacted by susceptibility artifacts, therefore the ability to get good-quality signals from this brain region is highly restricted. In the present study, the scientists resolved these obstacles in MTL imaging and lastly explored the distributed cortical anatomy connected with various subregions of the human temporal lobe in individuals.