Right Frontal Lobe Mediation of Recollection- and Familiarity-based Verbal Recognition Memory: Evidence from Patients with Tumor Resections

摘要

Medial-temporal, parietal, and pFC regions have been implicatednin recollection and familiarity, but existing evidence fromnneuroimaging and patient studies is limited and conflicting regardingnthe role of specific regions within pFC in these memorynprocesses. We report a study of 20 patients who had undergonenresection of right frontal lobe tumors and 20matched healthy controlnparticipants. The location and extent of lesions were traced onnthe patientsʼ scans. A process dissociation procedure was employednto yield estimates of the contributions of recollection andnfamiliarity in verbal recognition performance. Group comparisonsnrevealed deficits in recollection but not familiarity in the patientngroup relative to their healthy counterparts. We found a positivenrelationship between estimates of familiarity and lesion sizes in thenright inferior pFC (BA 11, 47) which was significant upon bootstrapnresampling. These results are discussed in terms of priorworknlinking this area to an overextended sense of familiarity.