Abstract
The hippocampus is critically important for a diverse range of cognitive processes, such as episodic memory, prospective memory, affective processing, and spatial navigation. Using individual-specific precision functional mapping of resting-state functional MRI data, we found the anterior hippocampus (head and body) to be preferentially functionally connected to the default mode network (DMN), as expected. The hippocampal tail, however, was strongly preferentially functionally connected to the parietal memory network (PMN), which supports goal-oriented cognition and stimulus recognition. This anterior-posterior dichotomy of resting-state functional connectivity was well-matched by differences in task deactivations and anatomical segmentations of the hippocampus. Task deactivations were localized to the hippocampal head and body (DMN), relatively sparing the tail (PMN). The functional dichotomization of the hippocampus into anterior DMN-connected and posterior PMN-connected parcels suggests parallel but distinct circuits between the hippocampus and medial parietal cortex for self- versus goal-oriented processing.
Highlights
The hippocampus is critically important for a diverse range of cognitive processes, such as episodic and prospective memory, affective processing, and spatial navigation [1,2,3,4,5,6,7]
Individual-specific winner-take-all parcellations of the hippocampus revealed that the anterior hippocampus was most strongly functionally connected to the default mode network (DMN) in all individuals (Fig. 1B and SI Appendix, Fig. S2)
We found that border voxels that belonged to the same hippocampal parcel (DMN or parietal memory network (PMN)) were significantly more similar than voxels that belonged to different parcels for every individual (Area Under the Curve = 0.64 to 0.88; P < 0.001)
Summary
The hippocampus is critically important for a diverse range of cognitive processes, such as episodic memory, prospective memory, affective processing, and spatial navigation. The hippocampal tail, was strongly preferentially functionally connected to the parietal memory network (PMN), which supports goal-oriented cognition and stimulus recognition. This anterior–posterior dichotomy of resting-state functional connectivity was well-matched by differences in task deactivations and anatomical segmentations of the hippocampus. The hippocampus is critically important for a diverse range of cognitive processes, such as episodic and prospective memory, affective processing, and spatial navigation [1,2,3,4,5,6,7]. The rodent ventral hippocampus (anterior in humans) plays a role in the modulation of stress and affect [2, 4], whereas the dorsal hippocampus (posterior in humans) is important for spatial navigation. The ventral hippocampus in rats is anatomically interconnected with the amygdala, temporal pole, and ventromedial prefrontal cortex [4, 15], while the dorsal hippocampus is connected with the anterior cingulate and retrosplenial cortex [4, 15]
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