Chapter 6 Differential contribution of frontal and medial temporal lobes to memory: Evidence from focal lesions and normal aging

In recent years the study of memory has become very much an interdisciplinary enterprise in which cognitive psychology and neuropsychology have been the principal participants. This collaboration has yielded a wealth of information concerning the brain-behavior relations involved in normal human memory. This chapter provides an overview of the empirical and theoretical developments that have emerged from the study of focal lesion patients and the normal elderly. The chapter focuses on the roles played in memory by two broad areas of brain-the medial temporal lobe regions and prefrontal cortex- and attempts to show how these areas make distinct but complementary contributions to human memory.