Structural basis of semantic memory

Neuropsychological investigations have established that structures in the medial temporal lobes support acquisition of new facts, ideas, and concepts, and that this information is stored in neocortex. Cortical damage can result both in general disorders of conceptual information about objects and category-specific disorders, depending on the extent and location of damage. Functional neuroimaging evidence indicates that information about objects’ salient properties is stored in sensory and motor systems active when that information was acquired. As a result, long-term memory for different object categories is grounded in partially distinct, sensory, and motor property-based neural networks.