Role of the hippocampus in remembering the past and imagining the future
Open accessAbstract
It has been proposed that a core network of brain regions, including the hippocampus, supports both past remembering and future imagining. We investigated the importance of the hippocampus for these functions. Five patients with bilateral hippocampal damage and one patient with large medial temporal lobe lesions were tested for their ability to recount autobiographical episodes from the remote past, the recent past, and to imagine plausible episodes in the near future. The patients with hippocampal damage had intact remote autobiographical memory, modestly impaired recent memory, and an intact ability to imagine the future. The patient with large medial temporal lobe lesions had intact remote memory, markedly impaired recent memory, and also had an intact ability to imagine the future. The findings suggest that the capacity for imagining the future, like the capacity for remembering the remote past, is independent of the hippocampus.
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Hippocampal damage and/or loss of episodic memory does not always compromise the imagining of new experiences.
“Critically, hippocampal damage and/or the loss of episodic memory does not always compromise the imagining of new experiences. A recent study showed that a group of patients with hippocampal damage could imagine the future (Squire et al., 2010), however, it is notable that the episodic memory loss in this group was only mild (Maguire and Hassabis, 2011).”
From Considering the role of semantic memory in episodic future thinking: evidence from semantic dementia (2012) · cites this paper as Squire et al., 2010
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- Authors
- Squire, L. R., van der Horst, A. S., McDuff, S. G. R., Frascino, J. C., Hopkins, R. O., & Mauldin, K. N.
- Affiliations
- University of California San Diego (US)
- Veterans Affairs San Diego Healthcare System, San Diego, CA 92161;
- Departments of bPsychiatry,
- Brigham Young University (US)
- Venue
- Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
- Publisher
- National Academy of Sciences
- Published
- 2010-10-18
- Volume
- 107
- Issue
- 44
- Pages
- 19044-19048
- ISSN
- 0027-8424 (ISSN-L)
- 1091-6490
- PMC
- PMC2973863
- OpenAlex
- W2099301993
- Cited by
- 206
- References
- 38
- Citations by year
- 2026: 7 · 2025: 5 · 2024: 10 · 2023: 6 · 2022: 4 · 2021: 6 · 2020: 9 · 2019: 18 · 2018: 13 · 2017: 12 · 2016: 19 · 2015: 21 · 2014: 17 · 2013: 18 · 2012: 23
- FWCI
- 11.41
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- green
- www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
- Locations
- Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (publishedVersion)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Funders
- U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs
- National Institute on Aging (T35 AG26757, T35AG026757)
- National Institute of Mental Health (R37MH024600, 24600, R01MH024600, MH24600)
- Topics
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Memory and Neural Mechanisms
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Memory Processes and Influences
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Developmental and Educational Psychology › Identity, Memory, and Therapy
- Keywords
- hippocampus, autobiographical memory, future imaginings, remote memory, recent memory, medial temporal lobe lesions, hippocampal lesions, episodic memory
- MeSH terms
- Adolescent, Aged, Child, Female, Hippocampus, Humans, Male, Memory, Memory Disorders, Middle Aged
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