Learning face-name associations and the effect of age and performance: a PET activation study

Learning face-name associations is a complex task to be mastered in every day life that approaches the limits of cognitive capacity in most normal humans. We studied brain activation during face-name learning using positron emission tomography (PET) in 11 normal volunteers. The most intense activation was seen in occipital association cortex (BA 18) bilaterally, also involving lingual and fusiform gyrus (BA 37). In the left hemisphere additional activation were located in inferior temporal gyrus, the inferior part of pre- and postcentral gyrus, and orbitofrontal cortex (BA 11), whereas in the right hemisphere only a region in the precuneus (BA 19) was activated additionally. There was considerable interindividual variation of encoding success, which was significantly related to activation of BA 18 bilaterally. Subject ages covered a range of 26-72 years, but - in contrast to the effect of encoding success - there was no significant age effect on activations. Task-independent habituation effects were seen in cerebellum and left middle temporal gyrus. These results indicate that the intensity of information processing in ventral occipital association cortex is most important for success of face-name encoding. Learning is further mediated by a predominantly left-hemispheric network including inferior temporal and orbitofrontal cortex.