The Neuroscience of Memory: Understanding the Hippocampus and Memory Pathways

The Neuroscience of Memory: Understanding the Hippocampus and Memory Pathways

The hippocampus is an important structure within the brain that is responsible for memory formation and consolidation. In this blog post, we will explore the anatomy of the hippocampus and its role in memory formation.

Anatomy of the Hippocampus

The hippocampus is located within the medial temporal lobe of the limbic system and is composed of several regions, including the dentate gyrus, parahippocampal gyrus, and hippocampal gyrus. The hippocampal gyrus contains areas such as the entorhinal cortex and subiculum, which are both vital in the flow of information through the hippocampus. The hippocampus is divided into CA1 to CA4 regions, which play a crucial role in memory formation due to the high levels of NMDA glutamatergic receptors located in the CA1 Schaffer collateral neurons.

Memory Pathway in the Hippocampus

The trisynaptic circuit is the pathway of memory transmission in the hippocampus. The circuit receives sensory input from the cortical regions of the brain via the entorhinal cortex. This input then projects via the perforant pathway to the dentate gyrus, then to the CA3 region via the mossy fiber pathway before traveling to the CA3 neurons through the Schaffer collateral pathway. Finally, this signal is outputted from the subiculum to the rest of the various areas of the brain such as the Fornix, which can loop back to the entorhinal cortex.

The Role of Long-Term Potentiation (LTP)

If the sensory input is strong and is repeated multiple times, LTP will be induced to increase synaptic connections. This allows the trisynaptic system to occur more rapidly next time. The synaptic plasticity of the CA1 Schaffer collateral neurons heavily relies on LTP induction to allow the strengthening of declarative memory, which includes two types of implicit memory such as episodic and semantic memory.

References

  • Footage Provided By a href="http://www.videezy.com" Videezy /a, www.videvo.net
  • Xu, X., Sun, Y., Holmes, T. and López, A., 2016. Noncanonical connections between the subiculum and hippocampal CA1. Journal of Comparative Neurology, 524(17), pp.3666-3673.
  • Henry Gray (1918) Anatomy of the Human Body Book
  • Medical Dictionary 2011. Hippocampus (Online). Available: https://medicine.academic.ru/3923/Hippocampus (Accessed 31 March 2020).
  • Hippocampal Neurons Image by Dr. Wutian Wu Affiliatio: CTO, Re-Stem Biotechnology, Suzhou, China -nikonsmallworld
  • Basal Ganglia In The Brain from Science Photo Library Art – Pixels.com
  • Freestyle Beat from www.MixlaProduction.com

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