Dissociating the roles of the
anterior and mediodorsal thalamic nuclei in human memory
Doran P Amos, Claudia
Zumpe, Stefan Repplinger, Alan Richardson-Klavehn
Memory & Consciousness Group,
Department of Neurology, Otto-von- Guericke University, Magdeburg,
Germany
Objects Scenes
SR: Correctly labelled Old with Source Recall
IR: Correctly labelled Old, unknown Source
MISS: Old item incorrectly labelled New
CR: New item correctly labelled New
•
•
•
•
ATN MD
Arrows task (Baseline) Random direction and number of trials to jitter task onset
Encoding Task
Respond to one of two source questions:
1.Small or large?
2.Man-made or natural?
Retrieval task
Respond with one of 4 options:
New Old, unknown Source Task
Old with Source Task 1
Old with Source Task 2
Encoding Retrieval
Greater activity in right ATN corresponds to later
forgetting. Obj activity is marginally larger than Sce.
0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1 1.2 1.4
SR IR MISS
Parameter Estimate (Beta)
Left PhC
0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1 1.2 1.4
Obj Sce
** ***
n.s.
**
n.s.
0 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5
SR IR MISS
Parameter Estimate
0 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5
Obj Sce
Left & Right PrC
*
n.s.
**
*
n.s.
-0.6 -0.4 -0.2 0 0.2 0.4
SR IR MISS CR
Parameter Estimate
-0.6 -0.4 -0.2 0 0.2 0.4
Obj Sce
Left ATN
*
*
n.s. n.s.
0 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5
SR IR MISS CR
Parameter Estimate
Left MD
0 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 0.6
Obj Sce
*
n.s.
†
n.s.0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1 1.2
Obj Sce
0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1 1.2
SR IR MISS CR
Parameter Estimate (Beta)
*** ** ***
Left & Right PhC
n.s.
* *
-0.4 -0.3 -0.2 -0.1 0 0.1 0.2 0.3
SR IR MISS
Parameter Estimate
Right ATN
-0.4 -0.3 -0.2 -0.1 0 0.1 0.2 0.3
Obj Sce
*
*
†
n.s.
Left ATN shows increasing retrieval activity for
recognition and source recall relative to MISS/CR.
Likewise, both recognition and source recall increases MD activity at retrieval. In contrast, there were no
significant later memory effects at encoding.
PrC activity at Encoding supported later recognition memory and source recall with scenes. At retrieval, there were no effects of Memory (not shown).
Left (and Right, not shown) PhC show higher activity for later recognised scenes, but not objects.
PhC shows increasing activity for recognition and
source recall vs. MISS/CR for scenes, but not objects.
ATN MD
HPC
PrC PhC
Main effects: Hemisphere, Item Type, Memory Interactions: None
Main effects: Memory Interactions: Item Type x Memory
Main effects: Hemisphere, Memory Interactions: Hemisphere x Memory
Main effects: Memory Interactions: Hemisphere x Memory
Main effects: Hemisphere, Item Type, Memory Interactions: Hem x Item, Hem x Mem, Hem x Item x Mem
Main effects: Hemisphere, Item Type, Memory Interactions: Item Type x Memory
