Memory for a recently learned environment: An fMRI study.
Published: 2007
Language: eng
Number of pages: 62
ISBN-13: 9780494274040
Description: The hippocampus is required for the acquisition of new spatial memories, but its role in the long-term storage of such memories is debated. The current study used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to investigate brain activity while participants performed mental navigation tasks in a recently learned environment (downtown Toronto). Temporal lobe activity was observed in the right hippocampus and left parahippocampal gyrus (PHG) at a liberal threshold when these tasks were contrasted with a visuomotor control condition. Importantly, when the same mental navigation tasks were performed by participants with extensive experience in downtown Toronto, no hippocampal activation was observed even at low thresholds (Rosenbaum et al., 2004). Taken together, these findings provide preliminary evidence that the hippocampus may play a time-limited role in the storage and retrieval of spatial memories necessary for navigation---it is needed at acquisition and for some time afterwards, but not once expertise has been acquired.
Notes: Source: Masters Abstracts International, Volume: 45-06, page: 3311.

Thesis (M.A.)--University of Toronto, 2007.

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