Abstract
Beyond its established role in declarative memory function, the hippocampus has been implicated in varied roles in sensory processing and cognition, particularly those requiring temporal or spatial context. Disentangling its known role in memory from other cognitive functions can be challenging, as memory is directly or indirectly involved in most conscious activities, including tasks that underlie most experimental investigations. Recent work from this lab has examined the directional influence from the hippocampus on cortical areas involved in task performance, including tasks requiring movements, sensory processing, or language judgments. The hippocampus shows preferential connectivity with relevant cortical areas, typically the region critically involved in task performance, raising the possibility that the hippocampus plays a role in cognitive control. Minimal criteria for a role in cognitive control are proposed, and hippocampal connectivity with sensorimotor cortex during a non-mnemonic motor task is shown to meet this standard. Future directions for exploration are discussed.
Highlights
Since its earliest description in 1587, many different functions have been ascribed to the hippocampus, each based on the available techniques and prevailing understanding of brain function
Support for this idea was seen in the Hippocampus - New Advances experiments of Klüver and Bucy, who reported that resection of the medial temporal lobe had extreme effects on emotional behaviors [4–6]
This chapter will focus on the influence of the hippocampus across a variety of cognitive domains; as such, effective connectivity studies will be emphasized, with particular attention to those that use psychophysiological interactions (PPI)
Summary
Since its earliest description in 1587, many different functions have been ascribed to the hippocampus, each based on the available techniques and prevailing understanding of brain function. The advent of neuroimaging methodologies, functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), allowed hippocampal function to be studied noninvasively in humans This technique detects regional changes in oxygenated blood resulting from increased neuronal activity, providing the means to identify brain areas based on their functional activity. With the development of connectivity analysis from fMRI data early this century, influences between brain regions could be inferred based on the temporal pattern of neural activity. This chapter will focus on the influence of the hippocampus across a variety of cognitive domains; as such, effective connectivity studies will be emphasized, with particular attention to those that use psychophysiological interactions (PPI) This form of effective connectivity analysis reveals task-specific influences between regions. Results show a pattern whereby the hippocampus consistently influences activity in cortical areas involved in task performance, including tasks requiring movements, sensory processing, language judgments, and memory. Careful consideration of results and the cognitive requirements of these tasks suggests hippocampal connectivity could play a role in cognitive control, perhaps in parallel with the role of prefrontal cortex in translating thoughts into action
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