Parietal lobe critically supports successful paired immediate and single-item delayed memory for targets

Abstract

The parietal lobe is important for successful recognition memory, but its role is not yet fully understood. We investigated the parietal lobes' contribution to immediate paired-associate memory and delayed item-recognition memory separately for hits (targets) and correct rejections (distractors). We compared the behavioral performance of 56 patients with known parietal and medial temporal lobe dysfunction (i.e. early Alzheimer's Disease) to 56 healthy control participants in an immediate paired and delayed single item object memory task. Additionally, we performed voxel-based morphometry analyses to investigate the functional-neuroanatomic relationships between performance and voxel-based estimates of atrophy in whole-brain analyses. Behaviorally, all participants performed better identifying targets than rejecting distractors. The voxel-based morphometry analyses associated atrophy in the right ventral parietal cortex with fewer correct responses to familiar items (i.e. hits) in the immediate and delayed conditions. Additionally, medial temporal lobe integrity correlated with better performance in rejecting distractors, but not in identifying targets, in the immediate paired-associate task. Our findings suggest that the parietal lobe critically supports successful immediate and delayed target recognition memory, and that the ventral aspect of the parietal cortex and the medial temporal lobe may have complementary preferences for identifying targets and rejecting distractors, respectively, during recognition memory.

Gallery Game: Smartphone-based assessment of long-term memory in adults at risk of Alzheimer’s disease

“…Similarly, adults with amnestic mild cognitive impairment (aMCI) or mild AD show greater false recognition (or 'false alarms') to novel living objects than non-living objects after implicit learning (Kivisaari, Monsch, et al, 2013). In addition, discrimination of novel items is linked more strongly to PRc function than recognition of familiar objects (supported by ventral parietal regions) (Krumm et al, 2017). Drawing on this collection of evidence, Gallery Game's test of delayed recognition is designed to provide a sensitive marker of PRc dysfunction -and hence early AD-related pathology -by presenting living and non-living target images amid highly-confusable matched but novel distractors.…”

Brain signal complexity in adults with Down syndrome: Potential application in the detection of mild cognitive impairment

“…In this regard, studies of recognition memory revealed that the parietal lobe plays a key function in memory processes (Berryhill and Olson, 2009;Gonzalez et al, 2015). More concretely, Krumm et al (2017) found that the parietal lobe critically supports successful immediate and delayed target recognition memory, and that the ventral aspect of the parietal cortex and the medial temporal lobe may have complementary preferences for identifying targets and rejecting distractors, respectively, during recognition memory. In fact, a mnestic pattern in the MCI in DS is characteristic (Firth et al, 2018;García-Alba et al, 2019;Ramírez-Toraño et al, 2021;Esteba-Castillo et al, 2022).…”

Gallery Game: Smartphone-based Assessment of Long-Term Memory in Adults at Risk of Alzheimer’s Disease

“…Similarly, adults with amnestic mild cognitive impairment (aMCI) or mild AD show greater false recognition (or 'false alarms') to novel living objects than non-living objects after implicit learning . In addition, discrimination of novel items is linked more strongly to PRc function than recognition of familiar objects (supported by ventral parietal regions) (Krumm et al, 2017). Drawing on this collection of evidence, Gallery Game's test of delayed recognition is designed to provide a sensitive marker of PRc dysfunction -and hence early AD-related pathology -by presenting living and non-living target images amid highly-confusable matched but novel distractors.…”