A familiarity signal in human anterior medial temporal cortex?

In summary, the present findings indicate that across a variety of stimulus materials, whether stimulus repetition is task-relavant or incidental, and regardless of level of contextual retrieval, the human anterior MTL is sensitive to whether a visual stimulus is experienced in an experimental context for the first or second time. The response decreases for Old relative to New items bear a striking resemblance to repetition-related decreases in neuronal firing rate in monkey perirhinal cortex. To the extent that differential neural activity in the perirhinal cortex of the monkey supports recognition memory, the present findings imply a similar role for this region in the human brain.