Memory impairment in humans after bilateral damage to lateral temporal neocortex

The hippocampus and its adjacent medial temporal regions are crucial for episodic memory. However, it is far less obvious whether other temporal regions beyond the medial part are important for memory processing. The memory performance of a group of patients with bilateral lesions over the lateral temporal lobe sparing the hippocampus was assessed and compared with that of patients with relatively spared cortex and patients with bilateral damage to the lateral temporal lobe and the hippocampus. The results demonstrate that bilateral damage to the lateral temporal lobe results in memory impairment across verbal and visual modalities.