New research indicates the intraparietal sulcus in perceptual binding of multiple features of stimuli into memory

Memories of events comprise many components--including sights, sounds, smells, and tastes. Somehow the many features of an episodic memory are woven together into a coherent whole, and researchers have had little understanding of how this binding takes place as the memories are processed by the brain's memory center, the hippocampus. A central question has been whether the hippocampus receives an "episodic packet," or a collection of perceptual strands that it must integrate into a memory.

In an article in the November 9, 2006, issue of the journal Neuron, published by Cell Press, Melina Uncapher and colleagues report experiments with human volunteers that shed important light on this process.