The Role of the Hippocampus in Prediction and Imagination
Abstract
Traditionally, the hippocampal system has been studied in relation to the goal of retrieving memories about the past. Recent work in humans and rodents suggests that the hippocampal system may be better understood as a system that facilitates predictions about upcoming events. The hippocampus and associated cortical structures are active when people envision future events, and damage that includes the hippocampal region impairs this ability. In rats, hippocampal ensembles preplay and replay event sequences in the absence of overt behavior. If strung together in novel combinations, these sequences could provide the neural building blocks for simulating upcoming events during decision-making, planning, and when imagining novel scenarios. Moreover, in both humans and rodents, the hippocampal system is spontaneously active during task-free epochs and sleep, further suggesting that the system may use idle moments to derive new representations that set the context for future behaviors.
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Patients with damage to hippocampal and non-hippocampal regions involved in memory have unusually poor performance when asked to predict or imagine future scenarios.
“Patients with damage to hippocampal and non-hippocampal regions involved in memory have unusually poor performance when asked to predict or imagine future scenarios. Such patients imagine impoverished scenarios lacking in detail and coherence [82], [83].”
From Episodic Memory in AI Agents Poses Risks that Should be Studied and Mitigated (2025) · cites this paper as [82]
Episodic memory and its brain systems are involved in predicting and imagining the future.
“Accumulating evidence shows that episodic memory - and the brain systems that support it - is involved in predicting and imagining the future.”
From Episodic Memory in AI Agents Poses Risks that Should be Studied and Mitigated (2025) · cites this paper as [82]
Patients with amnesia lacked the ability to engage in flexible thinking.
“As long ago as the nineteenth century it was observed that patients with amnesia lacked the ability to engage in flexible thinking, with one doctor observing of his amnesiac patients that the 'circle of ideas in which the patient's intelligence moves becomes very restricted' [82], [84].”
From Episodic Memory in AI Agents Poses Risks that Should be Studied and Mitigated (2025) · cites this paper as [82]
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References 140 · Cited by 419
- Authors
- Buckner, R. L.
- Affiliations
- Howard Hughes Medical Institute (US)
- Corresponding author
- Buckner, Randy L.
- ORCID
- Buckner, Randy L.
- Venue
- Annual Review of Psychology
- Publisher
- Annual Reviews
- Published
- 2010-01-01
- Volume
- 61
- Issue
- 1
- Pages
- 27-48
- ISSN
- 0066-4308 (ISSN-L)
- 1545-2085
- OpenAlex
- W2110854100
- Cited by
- 419
- References
- 140
- Citations by year
- 2026: 14 · 2025: 31 · 2024: 24 · 2023: 19 · 2022: 14 · 2021: 16 · 2020: 27 · 2019: 55 · 2018: 26 · 2017: 28 · 2016: 24 · 2015: 17 · 2014: 30 · 2013: 30 · 2012: 27
- FWCI
- 1.56
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- Annual Review of Psychology (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Funders
- Howard Hughes Medical Institute
- National Institute on Aging (AG021910, R01AG021910)
- Topics
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Memory and Neural Mechanisms
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Memory Processes and Influences
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Sleep and Wakefulness Research
- Keywords
- hippocampus, prediction, mental imagery, memory retrieval, replay, sleep, decision-making, planning, hippocampal lesions
- MeSH terms
- Animals, Brain Mapping, Cerebral Cortex, Hippocampus, Humans, Imagination, Models, Neurological, Nerve Net, Neural Pathways, Neurons, Time Perception
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