Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-s2hrs Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-10T07:03:08.424Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The anterior temporal lobes and the functional architecture of semantic memory

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 September 2009

W. KYLE SIMMONS  and
ALEX MARTIN
W. KYLE SIMMONS*
Affiliation:
Laboratory of Brain & Cognition, National Institute of Mental Health, Bethesda, Maryland
ALEX MARTIN
Affiliation:
Laboratory of Brain & Cognition, National Institute of Mental Health, Bethesda, Maryland
*
*Correspondence and reprint requests to: W. Kyle Simmons, Ph.D, Laboratory of Brain & Cognition, National Institute of Mental Health, Building 10, Room 4C-104, MSC 1366, Bethesda, MD 20892-1366. E-mail: simmonswkyle@mail.nih.gov
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Recently, three accounts have emerged on the role of the anterior temporal lobes (ATLs) in semantic memory. One account claims that the ATLs are domain-general semantic hubs, another claims that they underlie knowledge of unique entities specifically, and yet another account claims that they support social conceptual knowledge generally. Here, we review neuropsychological and neuroimaging studies that bear on these three accounts and offer suggestions for future research to elucidate the roles of the ATLs in semantic memory. (JINS, 2009, 15, 645–649.)

Keywords

KnowledgeConceptsLesionfMRIPETProsopagnosias
Type
Short Review
Information
Journal of the International Neuropsychological Society , Volume 15 , Issue 5 , September 2009 , pp. 645 - 649
Copyright
Copyright © The International Neuropsychological Society 2009

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Brambati, S.M., Rankin, K.P., Narvid, J., Seeley, W.W., Dean, D., Rosen, H.J., et al. (2009). Atrophy progression in semantic dementia with asymmetric temporal involvement: A tensor-based morphometry study. Neurobiology of Aging, 30, 103–111.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Castelli, F., Happe, F., Frith, U., & Frith, C. (2000). Movement and mind: A functional imaging study of perception and interpretation of complex intentional movement patterns. Neuroimage, 12, 314–25.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Crinion, J.T., Lambon Ralph, M.A., Warburton, E.A., Howard, D., & Wise, R.J.S. (2003). Temporal lobe regions engaged during normal speech comprehension. Brain, 126, 1193–1201.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Damasio, H., Tranel, D., Grabowski, T., Adolphs, R., & Damasio, A. (2004). Neural systems behind word and concept retrieval. Cognition 92, 179–229.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Davis, M.H., & Johnsrude, I.S. (2003). Hierarchical processing in spoken language comprehension. Journal of Neuroscience, 23, 3423–3431.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Devlin, J.T., Russell, R.P., Davis, M.H., Price, C.J., Wilson, J., Moss, H.E., et al. (2000). Susceptibility-induced loss of signal: Comparing PET and fMRI on a semantic task. Neuroimage, 11, 589–600.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Drane, D.L., Ojemann, G.A., Aylward, E., Ojemann, J.G., Johnson, L.C., Silbergeld, D.L., et al. (2008). Category-specific naming and recognition deficits in temporal lobe epilepsy surgical patients. Neuropsychologia, 46, 1242–1255.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Frith, C.D. (2007). The social brain? Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society London: Series B, Biological Sciences, 362, 671–678.Google Scholar
Fukatsu, R., Fujii, T., Tsukiura, T., Yamadori, A., & Otsuki, T. (1999). Proper name anomia after left temporal lobectomy: A patient study. Neurology, 52, 1096–1099.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Glosser, G., Salvucci, A.E., & Chiaravalloti, N.D. (2003). Naming and recognizing famous faces in temporal lobe epilepsy. Neurology, 61, 81–86.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Gorno-Tempini, M.L., Price, C.J., Josephs, O., Vandenberghe, R., Cappa, S.F., Kapur, N., et al. (1998). The neural systems sustaining face and proper-name processing. Brain, 121, 2103–2118.Google Scholar
Grabowski, T.J., Damasio, H., Tranel, D., Ponto, L.L., Hichwa, R.D., & Damasio, A.R. (2001). A role for left temporal pole in the retrieval of words for unique entities. Human Brain Mapping, 13, 199–212.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Grezes, J., Frith, C., & Passingham, R.E. (2004). Brain mechanisms for inferring deceit in the actions of others. Journal of Neuroscience, 24, 5500–5505.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Grill-Spector, K. (2003). The neural basis of object perception. Current Opinion in Neurobiology, 13, 159–166.Google Scholar
Kriegeskorte, N., Formisano, E., Sorger, B., & Goebel, R. (2007). Individual faces elicit distinct response patterns in human anterior temporal cortex. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 104, 20600–20605.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Lambon Ralph, M.A., & Patterson, K. (2008). Generalization and differentiation in semantic memory: Insights from semantic dementia. Annals of the New York Academy of Science, 1124, 61–76.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Leveroni, C.L., Seidenberg, M., Mayer, A.R., Mead, L.A., Binder, J.R., & Rao, S.M. (2000). Neural systems underlying the recognition of familiar and newly learned faces. Journal of Neuroscience, 20, 878–886.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Levy, D.A., Bayley, P.J, & Squire, L.R. (2004). The anatomy of semantic knowledge: Medial vs. lateral temporal lobe. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 101, 6710–6715.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Martin, A. (2007). The representation of object concepts in the brain. Annual Review of Psychology, 58, 25–45.Google Scholar
McClelland, J.L., & Rogers, T.T. (2003). The parallel distributed processing approach to semantic cognition. Nature Reviews Neuroscience, 4, 310–322.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Moll, J., de Oliveira-Souza, R., Eslinger, P.J., Bramati, I.E., Mourao-Miranda, J., Andreiuolo, P.A., et al. (2002). The neural correlates of moral sensitivity: A functional magnetic resonance imaging investigation of basic and moral emotions. Journal of Neuroscience, 22, 2730–2736.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Mur, M., Bandettini, P.A., & Kriegeskorte, N. (2009). Revealing representational content with pattern-information fMRI–an introductory guide. Social, Cognitive, and Affective Neuroscience, 4, 101–109.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Nakamura, K., Kawashima, R., Sato, N., Nakamura, A., Sugiura, M., Kato, T., et al. (2000). Functional delineation of the human occipito-temporal areas related to f ace and scene processing. A PET study. Brain, 123, 1903–1912.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Noppeney, U., Patterson, K., Tyler, L.K., Moss, H., Stamatakis, E.A., Bright, P., et al. (2007). Temporal lobe lesions and semantic impairment: A comparison of herpes simplex virus encephalitis and semantic dementia. Brain, 130, 1138–1147.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Olson, I.R., Plotzker, A., & Ezzyat, Y. (2007). The enigmatic temporal pole: A review of findings on social and emotional processing. Brain 130, 1718–1731.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Patterson, K., Nestor, P.J., & Rogers, T.T. (2007). Where do you know what you know? The representation of semantic knowledge in the human brain. Nature Reviews Neuroscience, 8, 976–987.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pobric, G., Jefferies, E., & Lambon-Ralph, M.A. (2007). Anterior temporal lobes mediate semantic representation: Mimicking semantic dementia by using rTMS in normal participants. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 104, 20137–20141.Google Scholar
Pourtois, G., Schwartz, S., Segheir, M.L., Lazeyras, F., & Vuilluemier, P. (2005). View-independent coding of face identity in frontal and temporal cortices is modulated by familiarity: An event-related fMRI study. Neuroimage, 24, 1214–1224.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Powell, H.W., Parker, G.J., Alexander, D.C., Symms, M.R., Boulby, P.A., Wheeler-Kingshott, C.A., et al. (2007). Abnormalities of language networks in temporal lobe epilepsy. Neuroimage, 36, 209–221.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Rogers, T.T., Hocking, J., Noppeney, U., Mechelli, A., Gorno-Tempini, M.L., Patterson, K., et al. (2006). Anterior temporal cortex and semantic memory: Reconciling findings from neuropsychology and functional imaging. Cognitive, Affective & Behavioral Neuroscience, 6, 201–213.Google Scholar
Rogers, T.T., Lambon Ralph, M.A., Garrard, P., Bozeat, S., McClelland, J.L., Hodges, J.R., et al. (2004). Structure and deterioration of semantic memory: A neuropsychological and computational investigation. Psychological Review, 111, 205–235.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Rogers, T.T., & McClelland, J.L. (2004). Semantic cognition: A parallel distributed processing approach. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Rotshtein, P., Henson, R.N., Treves, A., Driver, J., & Dolan, R.J. (2005). Morphing Marilyn into Maggie dissociates physical and identity face representations in the brain. Nature Neuroscience, 8, 107–113.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Rounis, E., Stephan, K.E., Lee, L., Siebner, H.R., Pesenti, A., Friston, K., et al. (2006). Acute changes in frontoparietal activity after repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation over the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex in a cued reaction time task. Journal of Neuroscience, 26, 9629–9638.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schultz, R.T., Grelotti, D.J., Klin, A., Kleinman, J., Van der Gaag, C., Marois, R., et al. (2003). The role of the fusiform face area in social cognition: Implications for the pathobiology of autism. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society London: Series B, Biological Sciences, 358, 415–427.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Sergent, J., & Signoret, J.L. (1992). Functional and anatomical decomposition of face processing: Evidence from prosopagnosia and PET study of normal subjects. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society London: Series B, Biological Sciences, 335, 55–62.Google Scholar
Simmons, W.K., Reddish, M., Bellgowan, P.F.S., & Martin, A. (in press). The selectivity and functional connectivity of the anterior temporal lobes. Cerebral Cortex.Google Scholar
Sugiura, M., Kawashima, R., Nakamura, K., Sato, N., Nakamura, A., Kato, T., et al. (2001). Activation reduction in anterior temporal cortices during repeated recognition of faces and personal acquaintances. Neuroimage, 13, 877–890.Google Scholar
Thompson-Schill, S.L. (2003). Neuroimaging studies of semantic memory: Inferring “how” from “where.” Neuropsychologia, 41, 280–292.Google Scholar
Tranel, D. (2006). Impaired naming of unique landmarks is associated with left temporal polar damage. Neuropsychology 20, 1–10.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Tsukiura, T., Namiki, M., Fujii, T., & Iijima, T. (2003). Time-dependent neural activations related to recognition of people’s names in emotional and neutral face-name associative learning: An fMRI study. Neuroimage, 20, 784–794.Google Scholar
Tsukiura, T., Toshikatsu, F., Fukatsu, R., Otsuki, T., Okuda, J., Umetsu, A., et al. (2003). Neural basis of the retrieval of people’s names: Evidence from brain-damaged patients and fMRI. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 14, 922–937.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tyler, L.K., Stamatakis, E.A., Bright, P., Acres, K., Abdallah, S., Rodd, J.M., et al. (2004). Processing objects at different levels of specificity. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 16, 351–362.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Vandenberghe, R., Price, C., Wise, R., Josephs, O., & Frackowiak, R.S.J. (1996). Functional anatomy of a common semantic system for words and pictures. Nature, 383, 254–256.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Vandenberghe, R., Nobre, A.C., & Price, C.J. (2002). The response of left temporal cortex to sentences. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 14, 550–560.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Williams, G.B., Nestor, P.J., & Hodges, J.R. (2005). Neural correlates of semantic and behavioural deficits in frontotemporal dementia. Neuroimage 24, 1042–1051.Google Scholar
Zahn, R., Moll, J., Iyengar, V., Huey, E.D., Tierney, M., Krueger, F., et al. (2009). Social conceptual impairments in frontotemporal lobar degeneration with right anterior temporal hypometabolism. Brain. 132, 604–616.Google Scholar
Zahn, R., Moll, J., Krueger, F., Huey, E.D., Garrido, G., & Grafman, J. (2007). Social concepts are represented in the superior anterior temporal cortex. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 104, 6430–6435.Google Scholar