title: Face memory and its disorders.
abstract: Face recognition is an essential biologic and social skill. Accurate recognition depends on the ability to encode, store, and retrieve distinct memory representations for the faces of countless individuals encountered in everyday life. In addition, face memory records must be integrated with specific biographic and name information in order to allow the recognition of each person's unique identity. Converging evidence from functional imaging, cortical electrical recording, and neuropsychologic studies suggests that face memory operations in the human brain are mediated by a distributed neural system. Components of this network include specialized memory storage sites within temporal neocortex that interact with medial temporal lobe and prefrontal cortical areas during face memory encoding and retrieval. Selective damage to these neuroanatomic regions gives rise to face recognition disorders characterized by memory loss or memory distortion.
authors.affiliation: Neurology Section (1-127), Southern Arizona VA Healthcare System, 3601 South 6th Avenue, Tucson, AZ 85723, USA. szr@u.arizona.edu
authors.forename: Steven Z
authors.initials: SZ
authors.lastname: Rapcsak
mesh_terms: D001927:Brain Diseases / Q000503:physiopathology / Q000523:psychology; D003071:Cognition; D004594:Electrophysiology; D005145:Face; D006801:Humans; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging; D008568:Memory / Q000502:physiology; D008569:Memory Disorders / Q000523:psychology*; D008960:Models, Psychological; D009422:Nervous System Diseases / Q000523:psychology; D017397:Prefrontal Cortex / Q000473:pathology; D021641:Recognition, Psychology; D013702:Temporal Lobe / Q000473:pathology