The rhinal cortex is the cortex surrounding the rhinal fissure, including the

entorhinal cortex The entorhinal cortex (EC) is an area of the brain's allocortex, located in the medial temporal lobe, whose functions include being a widespread network hub for memory, navigation, and the perception of time.Integrating time from experience in the ...

and the

perirhinal cortex The perirhinal cortex is a cortical region in the medial temporal lobe that is made up of Brodmann areas 35 and 36. It receives highly processed sensory information from all sensory regions, and is generally accepted to be an important region f ...

. It is a cortical region in the

medial temporal lobe The temporal lobe is one of the four major lobes of the cerebral cortex in the brain of mammals. The temporal lobe is located beneath the lateral fissure on both cerebral hemispheres of the mammalian brain. The temporal lobe is involved in pro ...

that is made up of

Brodmann areas A Brodmann area is a region of the cerebral cortex, in the human or other primate brain, defined by its cytoarchitecture, or histological structure and organization of cells. History Brodmann areas were originally defined and numbered by the ...

28, 34, 35 and 36. Input from all sensory cortices flows to the perirhinal and parahippocampal cortices, whence it continues to the

and then the

hippocampus The hippocampus (via Latin from Greek , ' seahorse') is a major component of the brain of humans and other vertebrates. Humans and other mammals have two hippocampi, one in each side of the brain. The hippocampus is part of the limbic system, ...

. After feedback from the hippocampus, information then returns in the reverse sequence to the sensory cortices.

Explicit memory

The rhinal cortex is proposed to be part of the neural circuit for

explicit memory Explicit memory (or declarative memory) is one of the two main types of long-term human memory, the other of which is implicit memory. Explicit memory is the conscious, intentional recollection of factual information, previous experiences, and con ...

.
Studies comparing the results of selective

lesions A lesion is any damage or abnormal change in the tissue of an organism, usually caused by disease or trauma. ''Lesion'' is derived from the Latin "injury". Lesions may occur in plants as well as animals. Types There is no designated classifi ...

of the

and of the rhinal cortex found that lesions of the hippocampus alone did not impair performance on object recognition tests, but that lesions of the rhinal cortex alone caused severe anterograde and retrograde impairments on these tests. The conclusion was that object recognition (

semantic memory Semantic memory refers to general world knowledge that humans have accumulated throughout their lives. This general knowledge (word meanings, concepts, facts, and ideas) is intertwined in experience and dependent on culture. We can learn about n ...

) depends on the rhinal cortex.E. Murray: ''Memory for objects in nonhuman primates''. In M.S. Gazzaniga, Ed. ''The new cognitive neurosciences,'' 2nd ed. 2000

References

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External links

* http://thebrain.mcgill.ca/flash/i/i_07/i_07_cr/i_07_cr_tra/i_07_cr_tra_2b.jpg for a picture of the rhinal cortex and its location. Neuroanatomy