Ventrolateral prefrontal cortex and tactile memory disambiguation in the human brain

doi:10.1073/pnas.0700253104

Ventrolateral prefrontal cortex and tactile memory disambiguation in the human brain

^†Montreal Neurological Institute, McGill University, 3801 University Street, Montreal, QC, CanadaH3A 2B4; and
^‡Department of Psychology, McGill University, 1205 Dr. Penfield Avenue, Montreal, QC, Canada H3A 1B1

Edited by Mortimer Mishkin, National Institute for Mental Health, Bethesda, MD, and approved April 25, 2007 (received for review January 10, 2007)

Abstract

Tactile sensory information is first channeled from the primary somatosensory cortex on the postcentral gyrus to the parietal opercular region (i.e., the secondary somatosensory cortex) and the rostral inferior parietal lobule and, from there, to the prefrontal cortex, with which bidirectional connections exist. Although we know that tactile memory signals can be found in the prefrontal cortex, the contribution of the different prefrontal areas to tactile memory remains unclear. The present functional MRI study shows that a specific part of the prefrontal cortex in the human brain, namely the midventrolateral prefrontal region (cytoarchitectonic areas 47/12 and 45), is involved in active controlled retrieval processing necessary for the disambiguation of vibrotactile information in short-term memory. Furthermore, we demonstrate that this particular part of the prefrontal cortex interacts functionally with the secondary somatosensory areas in the parietal operculum and the rostral inferior parietal lobule during controlled processing for the retrieval of specific tactile information.

Footnotes

^§To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: penelope{at}bic.mni.mcgill.ca
Author contributions: P.K., M.C.A., and M.P. designed research; P.K. and M.C.A. performed research; P.K. analyzed data; and P.K. and M.P. wrote the paper.
The authors declare no conflict of interest.
This article is a PNAS Direct Submission.
This article contains supporting information online at www.pnas.org/cgi/content/full/0700253104/DC1.
Abbreviations:

BOLD,

blood oxygenation level-dependent;

fMRI,

functional magnetic resonance imaging;

SI,

primary somatosensory cortex;

SII,

secondary somatosensory cortex.