Neural Activity in Human Hippocampal Formation Reveals the Spatial Context of Retrieved Memories

Abstract

Remembrance of Places Past The hippocampus has two major roles in cognition. Place-responsive neurons form a context-sensitive cognitive map, firing more strongly when an animal traverses specific regions of its environment. Both humans and animals thus need the hippocampus to learn their way around novel environments. Similarly, the hippocampus is critical for our ability to remember a specific event in space and time. It has thus been suggested that the spatial and memory functions of the hippocampus reflect a common architecture. Recording from neurosurgical patients playing a virtual reality memory game, Miller et al. (p. 1111 ) found that the recall of events was indeed associated with reinstatement of the place-firing of neurons activated as the subjects navigated through the environment.