An active debate in the learning and memory literature centers on the question of whether the perirhinal cortex, part of the medial temporal lobe (MTL), plays its major role in declarative/relational learning and memory or if it also makes an important contribution to high- level perception, similar to the functions of the adjacent visual area TE. Here I consider evidence from neuroanatomical and neurophysiological studies and argue that the perirhinal cortex has distinct and dissociable structure and function from area TE, making its major contribution to declarative/relational learning and memory. I propose additional neurophysiological studies that could help differentiate between these two debated roles of the perirhinal cortex: memory alone or memory plus high- level perception.
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