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Recognition of famous faces in the medial temporal lobe

An invasive ERP study

From the Department of Epileptology (Drs. Trautner, Dietl, Elger, and Kurthen, M. Staedtgen), University of Bonn, Germany; Swiss Epilepsy Center (Dr. Grunwald), Zurich, Switzerland; and University of Saarland (Dr. Mecklinger), Saarbrücken, Germany.

Address correspondence and reprint requests to Dr. P. Trautner, Department of Epileptology, University of Bonn, Sigmund-Freud-Str. 25, D-53105 Bonn, Germany; e-mail: p.trautner{at}web.de

Objective: To investigate the involvement of the rhinal cortex and the hippocampus in the processing of famous faces in contrast to nonfamous faces using intracranial event-related potentials (ERPs), and to analyze repetition effects for famous and nonfamous faces.

Methods: ERPs were elicited by pictures of famous and nonfamous faces and recorded from rhinal and hippocampal sites of intracranial electrodes in 10 presurgical patients with unilateral medial temporal lobe epilepsy. Famous and nonfamous faces were presented twice and mixed with distorted faces serving as targets. There was no instruction for an overt discrimination between famous and nonfamous faces. In contrast to nonfamous faces, famous faces stimulate processes related with access and retrieval of semantic memory.

Results: All faces evoked anterior medial temporal lobe N400-like (AMTL-N400) potentials in the rhinal cortex and P600-like potentials in the hippocampus. The AMTL-N400 and the hippocampal P600 amplitudes were larger for famous faces than for nonfamous faces. Mean amplitudes of the first and second presentation of famous faces suggest a repetition effect for the rhinal sites; however, they are significant only in the later signal components. No repetition effect was found for nonfamous faces and for potentials from the hippocampus.

Conclusion: The anterior medial temporal lobe N400 and the hippocampal P600 may be related to the access and retrieval of person-specific semantic memory.

Received February 17, 2004. Accepted in final form June 3, 2004.

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