Department of Psychology, University of Guelph, Guelph, Ontario, Canada.
Neuropsychologia. 2010 Jul;48(8):2251-61. doi: 10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2010.01.023. Epub 2010 Feb 2.
Damage to structures in the human medial temporal lobe causes severe memory impairment. Animal object recognition tests gained prominence from attempts to model 'global' human medial temporal lobe amnesia, such as that observed in patient HM. These tasks, such as delayed nonmatching-to-sample and spontaneous object recognition, for assessing object memory in non-human primates and rodents have proved invaluable as animal models of specific aspects of human declarative memory processes. This paper reviews research in non-human primates and rats using object recognition memory tasks to assess the neurobiological bases of amnesia. A survey of this research reveals several important implications for our understanding of the anatomical basis of memory and the medial temporal lobe amnesic syndrome. First, research with monkeys and rats reveals that the contributions of medial temporal lobe structures such as the hippocampus and perirhinal cortex to memory processes are dissociable, with particular structures contributing to specific tasks on the basis of the specific type of information that a structure is optimized to process. Second, the literature suggests that cognitive tasks requiring integration of different types of information, such as in the case of complex, multimodal declarative memory, will recruit structures of the medial temporal lobe in an interactive manner. The heterogeneity of function within the medial temporal lobe, as well as the multimodal and complex nature of human declarative memory, implies that animal tests of object recognition memory, once believed to be comprehensive models for the study of human global amnesia, model just one important facet of human declarative memory. Finally, in light of the research reviewed here, it is apparent that the specific nature of amnesia observed in an individual with medial temporal lobe damage will depend on the particular medial temporal lobe regions affected and their specific representational capacities.
人类内侧颞叶结构损伤会导致严重的记忆障碍。动物物体识别测试从试图模拟“整体”人类内侧颞叶遗忘症中获得了关注，例如在 HM 患者中观察到的遗忘症。这些任务，如延迟非匹配样本和自发物体识别，用于评估非人类灵长类动物和啮齿动物的物体记忆，已被证明是评估人类陈述性记忆过程特定方面的动物模型的宝贵工具。本文综述了使用物体识别记忆任务评估内侧颞叶遗忘症的神经生物学基础的非人类灵长类动物和大鼠研究。对这项研究的调查揭示了我们对记忆的解剖基础和内侧颞叶遗忘综合征的理解的几个重要意义。首先，猴子和大鼠的研究表明，内侧颞叶结构（如海马体和旁海马皮质）对记忆过程的贡献是可分离的，特定结构根据其被优化处理的特定类型的信息而对特定任务做出贡献。其次，文献表明，需要整合不同类型信息的认知任务，例如在复杂的、多模态的陈述性记忆的情况下，将以交互方式招募内侧颞叶结构。内侧颞叶的功能异质性，以及人类陈述性记忆的多模态和复杂性，意味着曾经被认为是研究人类整体遗忘症的全面模型的物体识别记忆动物测试，仅能模拟人类陈述性记忆的一个重要方面。最后，根据这里综述的研究，很明显，内侧颞叶损伤个体观察到的遗忘症的具体性质将取决于受影响的特定内侧颞叶区域及其特定的表示能力。
