Distinct familiarity-based response patterns for faces and buildings in perirhinal and parahippocampal cortex.

An unresolved question in our understanding of the medial temporal lobes is how functional differences between structures pertaining to stimulus category relate to the distinction between item-based and contextually based recognition-memory processes. Specifically, it remains unclear whether perirhinal cortex (PrC) supports item-based familiarity signals for all stimulus categories or whether parahippocampal cortex (PhC) may also play a role for stimulus categories that are known to engage this structure in other task contexts. Here, we used multivoxel pattern analyses of fMRI data to compare patterns of activity in humans that are associated with the perceived familiarity of faces, buildings, and chairs.