Precise temporal memories are supported by the lateral entorhinal cortex in humans

There is accumulating evidence that the entorhinal-hippocampal network is important for temporal memory. However, relatively little is known about the precise neurobiological mechanisms underlying memory for time. In particular, whether the lateral entorhinal cortex is involved in temporal processing remains an open question. During high-resolution fMRI scanning, participants watched a ~30-minute episode of a television show. During test, they viewed still-frames and indicated on a continuous timeline the precise time each still-frame was viewed during study. This procedure allowed us to measure error in seconds for each trial. We analyzed fMRI data from retrieval and found that high temporal precision was associated with increased BOLD fMRI activity in the anterolateral entorhinal (a homologue of the lateral entorhinal cortex in rodents) and perirhinal cortices, but not in the posteromedial entorhinal and parahippocampal cortices. This suggests a novel role for the lateral entorhinal cortex in processing of high-precision minute-scale temporal memories.