Memory mediation is studied

STANFORD, Calif., Nov 14, 2005 (UPI via COMTEX) -- Stanford University scientists say there are separate brain systems mediating actual memory and whether people believe they will remember something.

Yun-Ching Kao and colleagues found activity in a brain region called the ventromedial prefrontal cortex increases when subjects think they will remember an item, even when it will actually be forgotten later.

Using a functional imaging study, subjects were scanned while they predicted whether they would later remember scenes presented to them. Outside the scanner, they saw these same scenes again, this time intermixed with new ones, and had to indicate which scenes they had previously seen.

The authors found activity in the ventromedial prefrontal cortex was greater for the scenes that subjects predicted they would later remember, but these scenes were not necessarily the ones the subjects later correctly identified as having seen before.

Instead, in keeping with previous research, activity in a brain region called the medial temporal lobe when first viewing a scene predicted whether it would later be remembered or not. As such, the scientists determined there are separate brain systems mediating actual memory and whether people believe they will remember something.

The study appears in the December issue of Nature Neuroscience.

URL: www.upi.com