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Lookup NU author(s): Dr Meher Lad, Dr Sinead MullallyORCiD, Alex Houston, Dr Thomas Kelly, Professor Tim GriffithsORCiD
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0).
Since the publication of Scoville and Milner’s (1957) seminal paper, the precise functional role played by the hippocampus in support of human memory has been fiercely debated. For instance, the single question of whether the hippocampus plays a time-limited or an indelible role in the recollection of personal memories led to a deep and tenacious schism within the field. Similar polarisations arose between those who debated the precise nature of the role played by the hippocampus in support of semantic relative to episodic memories and in recall/recollection relative to familiarity-based recognition. At the epicentre of these divisions lies conflicting neuropsychological findings. These differences likely arise due to the consistent use of heterogeneous patient populations to adjudicate between these positions. Here we utilised traditional neuropsychological measures in a homogenous patient population with a highly-discrete hippocampal lesion (i.e. VGKCC-Ab related autoimmune limbic encephalitis patients). We observed consistent impairment of recent episodic memories, a present but less striking impairment of remote episodic memories, preservation of personal semantic memory, and recall but not recognition memory deficits. We conclude that this increasingly well-characterised patient group may represent an important homogeneous population in which the functional role played by the hippocampus may be more precisely delineated.
Author(s): Lad M, Mullally SL, Houston AL, Kelly T, Griffiths TD
Publication type: Article
Publication status: Published
Journal: Hippocampus
Year: 2019
Volume: 29
Issue: 11
Pages: 1114-1120
Print publication date: 01/11/2019
Online publication date: 31/08/2019
Acceptance date: 09/08/2019
Date deposited: 27/08/2019
ISSN (print): 1050-9631
ISSN (electronic): 1098-1063
Publisher: Wiley
URL: https://doi.org/10.1002/hipo.23150
DOI: 10.1002/hipo.23150
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