Parietal and frontal contributions to episodic encoding of location

Specific contributions of frontal and parietal regions to visuospatial encoding and attention remain controversial. This study used fMRI to examine associative encoding of sequentially-presented spatial cues and object stimuli. The cue preceded the centrally-displayed object by a jittered-delay-interval to better isolate attempt and success in episodically integrating pure location information with separately presented objects. Superior parietal response was modulated by attempted location binding, while superior/middle frontal response was predictive of successful location binding.

► Frontoparietal involvement in sequential object-location associative encoding.
► Superior parietal modulated by attempted visuospatial binding regardless of success.
► Medial/middle frontal response predictive of successful visuospatial binding.
► Dissociated parietal and frontal engagement in spatial binding attempt and success.