Related Experiment Video
Updated: Jul 30, 2026

Examining the Characteristics of Episodic Memory using Event-related Potentials in Patients with Alzheimer's Disease
Published on: August 30, 2011
Face memory impairments in patients with frontal lobe damage
S Z Rapcsak1, L Nielsen, L D Littrell
1Neurology Section, Southern Arizona VA Health Care System, Tucson85723, USA. szr@u.arizona.edu
Objective:
To determine whether damage to prefrontal cortex is associated with face memory impairment.
Background:
Neurophysiologic and functional imaging studies suggest that prefrontal cortex is a key component of a distributed neural network that mediates face recognition memory. However, there have been few attempts to examine the impact of frontal lobe damage on face memory performance.
Methods:
Patients with focal frontal lobe lesions and normal control subjects were administered two-alternative forced-choice and single-probe "yes/no" tests of recognition memory for novel faces. Retrograde memory was assessed by using famous faces as stimuli.
Results:
Compared with control subjects, patients with frontal lobe lesions showed evidence of marked anterograde and relatively mild retrograde face memory impairment. In addition, patients with right frontal lesions demonstrated increased susceptibility to false recognition, consistent with the breakdown of strategic memory retrieval, monitoring, and decision functions.
Conclusions:
Prefrontal cortex plays an important role in the executive control of face memory encoding and retrieval. Left and right prefrontal regions seem to make different contributions to recognition memory performance.
More Related Videos
08:31Conscious and Non-conscious Representations of Emotional Faces in Asperger's Syndrome
Published on: July 31, 2016
06:04Frontal Disconnection for Treating Mild Malformation of Cortical Development with Oligodendroglial Hyperplasia in Epilepsy (MOGHE) in the Frontal Lobe
Published on: August 16, 2024
Related Concept Videos
Association Areas of the Cortex
Prefrontal Association Area: This area is located in the frontal lobe and is involved in planning, decision-making, and moderating social behavior. It connects with primary motor areas,...
Visual Agnosia
Prosopagnosia
Role of Hippocampus in Memory
Role of Cerebellum and Prefrontal Cortex in Memory
Amnesia
The severity and duration of memory loss vary depending on the type and underlying cause. Amnesia is classified into two main types: retrograde and anterograde.
Retrograde amnesia is marked by the loss of memories formed before the onset of the condition. Patients may recall distant past events but often forget those occurring shortly before the incident.
Anterograde...