The Perirhinal Cortex

Anatomically, the perirhinal cortex sits at the boundary between the medial temporal lobe and the ventral visual pathway. It has prominent interconnections not only with both these systems, but also with a wide range of unimodal and polymodal association areas. Consistent with these diverse projections, neurophysiological studies reveal a multidimensional set of mnemonic signals that include stimulus familiarity, within- and between-domain associations, associative recall, and delay-based persistence. This wide range of perirhinal memory signals not only includes signals that are largely unique to the perirhinal cortex (i.e., object familiarity), consistent with dual-process theories, but also includes a range of signals (i.e., associative flexibility and recall) that are strongly associated with the hippocampus, consistent with single-process theories. These neurophysiological findings have important implications for bridging the gap between single-process and dual-process models of medial temporal lobe function.