Hippocampal amnesia impairs the generation of mental representations across all time periods KurczekJake DuffMelissa JensenUnni AdolphsRalph J. CohenNeal TranelDaniel 2016 <div> <div> <div><p>Kurczek, J., Duff, M.C., Jensen, U., Adolphs, R., Cohen, N. J., & Tranel, D. (2010, November). Hippocampal amnesia impairs the generation of mental representations across all time periods. <i>Poster presentation at the Society for Neuroscience Conference</i>, San Diego, CA. </p><p>Recent work has suggested hippocampus may be involved in imagining or thinking about the future (e.g., Addis & Schacter, 2008; Buckner & Carroll, 2007; Hassabis et al., 2007;Okuda et al., 2003; Szpunar et al., 2007; also Tulving, 1985).<br> • Given the significant methodological differences across studies (e.g., specificity of patient characterization; past vs. imagination; elicitation and data analysis procedures and methods) the role of hippocampus in generating mental representations to be used in service of thinking across real and imagined events, across time periods is unclear. </p> <p>• We take a direct and comprehensive approach by probing across time periods (e.g., past, present, future) and across real and imagined events, using well established methods (e.g., Levine et al., 2002; 2005) in a large group of well characterized amnesic and brain damaged-comparison participants. </p> <p>• Relational memory theory (Cohen & Eichenbaum, 1993; Eichenbaum & Cohen, 2001) predicts hippocampus is critical for generation, maintenance, and use of all mental representations irrespective of time period and for real or imagined events. </p> </div> </div> </div>