The current project is preparing a course for both undergraduates and doctoral students in neuroscience for next semester on the function of the hippocampus. For many in the field, this is an already answered question–the hippocampus is the biological substrate for human episodic memory. Others see it still as the neuronal seat of the so-called cognitive map. I’m not so sure. For all the experimental data collected on this beautiful brain structure over the years, the problem of biological function remains tantalizingly unclear.
Phenomena such as place cells, adult neurogenesis, theta phase precision, sequence learning and London Taxi Driver hypersized-hippocampi all are clues, but the detective story remains just that….a story.
Discoverers and Discoveries 