Inferior Temporal Cortex: Where Visual Perception Meets Memory

The neural processes that lead to visual perception and memory, thus subserving the identification of objects, have been assigned to the multi­ synaptic occipito-temporo-limbic projection that interconnects the striate, prestriate, inferior temporal, and hippocampal cortices (Gross 1972; Maunsell Mishkin et al 1983). Recent advances in our understanding of the organization of the extra striate cortex revealed a mosaic of more than 25 visual areas beyond the striate cortex (Felleman Van Essen 1985; Zeki Weiskrantz Squire Weiskrantz 1990). Recently, neuronal correlates of the visual long-term memory were found: The temporal-lobe neurons could reflect learned associative relations among stimuli (Miyashita 1988; Sakai & Miyashita 1991). The findings on this associational mechanism, together with that on the feature selectivity