伦敦大学的研究人员称，之前关于人类大脑通过不同机制形成长期记忆和短期记忆的理论可能不正确。
神经生物学家对失忆症患者进行研究，由于失忆症是由于大脑颞叶处海马体损伤引起，这类患者长时记忆能力丧失，但在不受干扰的情况下，仍可以在短时间内记住电话号码，因此，研究人员一直认为海马体只支持长时记忆而不支持短时记忆。
课题组对“海马体双侧硬化颞叶癫痫('temporal lobe epilepsy with bilateral hippocampal sclerosis)”患者进行研究，该疾病是癫痫病中的一种，能导致患者大脑海马体功能受到损害。研究人员要求这些患者回忆一些描绘普通场景的图片，如房间中的桌椅摆设等，研究人员利用脑磁描记法(magnetoencephalography，MEG)记录患者在回忆图片时大脑的活动。
研究人员发现，患者在60分钟后就很难记住图片的内容，而在回忆图片的细节时，连5秒钟间隔都记不住。通过MEG分析，研究人员认为这可能是因为短时记忆时需要大脑中多个区域协调运作，而当海马体受损后，会影响到这种协调性。研究人员猜测，在大脑内可能存在两种短期记忆系统，一种记忆功能的发挥与海马体无关，当长期记忆受损时也能正常工作，另外一种则与海马体有关，海马体损伤将导致长时记忆和短时记忆能力同时丧失。（生物谷Bioon.com）
生物谷推荐原始出处：
PNAS November 11, 2009, doi: 10.1073/pnas.0905792106
MEG demonstrates a supra-additive response to facial and vocal emotion in the right superior temporal sulcus
Cindy C. Hagana,b,1, Will Woodsb, Sam Johnsonb, Andrew J. Calderc, Gary G. R. Greena,b and Andrew W. Younga,b
aDepartment of Psychology, University of York, Heslington YO10 5DD, United Kingdom;
bYork Neuroimaging Centre, University of York, The Biocentre, York Science Park, Heslington YO10 5DG, United Kingdom; and
cMRC Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit, Cambridge CB2 7EF, United Kingdom
An influential neural model of face perception suggests that the posterior superior temporal sulcus (STS) is sensitive to those aspects of faces that produce transient visual changes, including facial expression. Other researchers note that recognition of expression involves multiple sensory modalities and suggest that the STS also may respond to crossmodal facial signals that change transiently. Indeed, many studies of audiovisual (AV) speech perception show STS involvement in AV speech integration. Here we examine whether these findings extend to AV emotion. We used magnetoencephalography to measure the neural responses of participants as they viewed and heard emotionally congruent fear and minimally congruent neutral face and voice stimuli. We demonstrate significant supra-additive responses (i.e., where AV > [unimodal auditory + unimodal visual]) in the posterior STS within the first 250 ms for emotionally congruent AV stimuli. These findings show a role for the STS in processing crossmodal emotive signals.
