In search of an auditory engram
- Laboratory of Neuropsychology, National Institute of Mental Health, National Institutes of Health, Department of Health and Human Services, Bethesda, MD 20892
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Contributed by Mortimer Mishkin, May 18, 2005
Abstract
Monkeys trained preoperatively on a task designed to assess auditory recognition memory were impaired after removal of either the rostral superior temporal gyrus or the medial temporal lobe but were unaffected by lesions of the rhinal cortex. Behavioral analysis indicated that this result occurred because the monkeys did not or could not use long-term auditory recognition, and so depended instead on short-term working memory, which is unaffected by rhinal lesions. The findings suggest that monkeys may be unable to place representations of auditory stimuli into a long-term store and thus question whether the monkey's cerebral memory mechanisms in audition are intrinsically different from those in other sensory modalities. Furthermore, it raises the possibility that language is unique to humans not only because it depends on speech but also because it requires long-term auditory memory.
Footnotes
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↵ † To whom correspondence should be addressed at: Laboratory of Neuropsychology, National Institute of Mental Health, National Institutes of Health, Building 49, Room 1B80, Bethesda, MD 20892. E-mail: richardsaunders{at}mail.nih.gov.
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↵ * Present address: Neural Systems Laboratory, Center for Acoustic and Auditory Research, Institute for Systems Research, University of Maryland, College Park, MD 20742.
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Author contributions: J.F., M.M., and R.C.S. designed research; J.F. and R.C.S. performed research; J.F., M.M., and R.C.S. analyzed data; and J.F., M.M., and R.C.S. wrote the paper.
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Abbreviations: DMS, delayed matching-to-sample; F, front; R, right; rSTG, rostral superior temporal gyrus; MT, medial temporal lobe; Rh, rhinal cortex.
