title: The role of medial temporal lobe structures in implicit learning: an event-related FMRI study.
abstract: The medial temporal lobe (MTL) has been associated with declarative learning of flexible relational rules and the basal ganglia with implicit learning of stimulus-response mappings. It remains an open question of whether MTL or basal ganglia are involved when learning flexible relational contingencies without awareness. We studied learning of an explicit stimulus-response association with fMRI. Embedded in this explicit task was a hidden structure that was learnt implicitly. Implicit learning of the sequential regularities of the "hidden rule" activated the ventral perirhinal cortex, within the MTL, whereas learning the fixed stimulus-response associations activated the basal ganglia, indicating that the function of the MTL and the basal ganglia depends on the learned material and not necessarily on the participants' awareness.
authors.affiliation: Cognitive Neuroscience Laboratory, Department of Neurology, University of Hamburg Medical School, D-20246, Hamburg, Germany. rose@uke.uni-hamburg.de
authors.forename: Michael
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Rose
authors.forename: Hilde
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Haider
authors.forename: Cornelius
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Weiller
authors.forename: Christian
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Büchel
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D001364:Awareness / Q000502:physiology; D001479:Basal Ganglia / Q000033:anatomy & histology / Q000502:physiology; D001519:Behavior / Q000502:physiology; D001931:Brain Mapping; D002560:Cerebrovascular Circulation / Q000502:physiology; D003214:Conditioning, Classical / Q000502:physiology*; D005071:Evoked Potentials / Q000502:physiology*; D005260:Female; D007839:Functional Laterality / Q000502:physiology; D006801:Humans; D007858:Learning / Q000502:physiology*; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging; D008297:Male; D009483:Neuropsychological Tests; D010775:Photic Stimulation; D011597:Psychomotor Performance / Q000502:physiology*; D011930:Reaction Time / Q000502:physiology; D013702:Temporal Lobe / Q000033:anatomy & histology* / Q000502:physiology*