Anterior hippocampus: the anatomy of perception, imagination and episodic memory

• Published in: Nature reviews. Neuroscience Vol. 17; no. 3; pp. 173 - 182
• Main Authors: Zeidman, Peter, Maguire, Eleanor A.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: London Nature Publishing Group UK 01.03.2016; Nature Publishing Group
• Subjects: 631/378/1595/1554; 631/378/2649/1723; Analysis; Animal Genetics and Genomics; Animals; Behavioral Sciences; Biological Techniques; Biomedicine; Hippocampus (Brain); Hippocampus - anatomy & histology; Hippocampus - physiology; Humans; Imagination; Imagination - physiology; Medical imaging; Memory; Memory, Episodic; Monkeys & apes; Neurobiology; Neuroimaging; Neurosciences; opinion-2; Perception; Perception - physiology; Physiological aspects; Visual perception; United Kingdom
• ISSN: 1471-003X; 1471-0048; 1469-3178
• DOI: 10.1038/nrn.2015.24

The anterior hippocampus is thought to be involved in a wide range of cognitive functions, including memory, navigation and perception. In this Opinion article, Zeidman and Maguire show how improved functional imaging techniques are shedding light on the precise anatomy of this region and the contribution of different parts of the anterior hippocampus to specific cognitive functions. The brain creates a model of the world around us. We can use this representation to perceive and comprehend what we see at any given moment, but also to vividly re-experience scenes from our past and imagine future (or even fanciful) scenarios. Recent work has shown that these cognitive functions — perception, imagination and recall of scenes and events — all engage the anterior hippocampus. In this Opinion article, we capitalize on new findings from functional neuroimaging to propose a model that links high-level cognitive functions to specific structures within the anterior hippocampus.