Amnesia & Hippocampus: BBS Call for Commentators

[Stevan Harnad]

Below is the abstract of a forthcoming BBS target article on:

        EPISODIC MEMORY, AMNESIA AND THE
        HIPPOCAMPAL/ANTERIOR-THALAMIC AXIS

        by John P. Aggleton & Malcolm W. Brown

This article has been accepted for publication in Behavioral and Brain
Sciences (BBS), an international, interdisciplinary journal providing
Open Peer Commentary on important and controversial current research in
the biobehavioral and cognitive sciences.

Commentators must be BBS Associates or nominated by a BBS Associate. To
be considered as a commentator for this article, to suggest other
appropriate commentators, or for information about how to become a BBS
Associate, please send EMAIL to:

    bbs at cogsci.soton.ac.uk

      or write to:
    
    Behavioral and Brain Sciences
    Department of Psychology
    University of Southampton
    Highfield, Southampton
    SO17 1BJ UNITED KINGDOM

    http://www.princeton.edu/~harnad/bbs/
    http://www.cogsci.soton.ac.uk/bbs/
    ftp://ftp.princeton.edu/pub/harnad/BBS/
    ftp://ftp.cogsci.soton.ac.uk/pub/bbs/
    gopher://gopher.princeton.edu:70/11/.libraries/.pujournals

If you are not a BBS Associate, please send your CV and the name of a
BBS Associate (there are currently over 10,000 worldwide) who is
familiar with your work. All past BBS authors, referees and commentators
are eligible to become BBS Associates.

To help us put together a balanced list of commentators, please give
some indication of the aspects of the topic on which you would bring
your areas of expertise to bear if you were selected as a commentator.
An electronic draft of the full text is available for inspection
with a WWW browser, anonymous ftp or gopher according to the
instructions that follow after the abstract.
____________________________________________________________________

            EPISODIC MEMORY, AMNESIA AND THE
            HIPPOCAMPAL/ANTERIOR-THALAMIC AXIS

            John P. Aggleton
            School of Psychology
            Cardiff University
            PO Box 901
            Cardiff CF1 3YG
            Wales
            aggleton at cardiff.ac.uk

            Malcolm W. Brown
            Department of Anatomy
            University of Bristol
            University Walk
            Bristol BS8 1TD
            U.K.
            m.w.brown at bristol.ac.uk  

    KEYWORDS:  amnesia,  memory, hippocampus, fornix, thalamus,
    temporal cortex

    ABSTRACT:  Based on new information from both clinical and
    experimental studies in animals (lesion, electrophysiological, and
    gene-activation), the anatomy underlying anterograde amnesia is
    reformulated. The distinction between temporal lobe and
    diencephalic amnesia is of limited value because a common feature
    of anterograde amnesia is damage to part of an 'extended
    hippocampal system' comprising the hippocampus, the fornix, the
    mamillary bodies and the anterior thalamic nuclei. This view, which
    can be traced back to Delay and Brion (1969), differs from other
    recent models in placing critical importance on the efferents from
    the hippocampus via the fornix to the diencephalon. These are
    necessary for the encoding and hence the effective subsequent
    recall of episodic memory. An additional feature of this
    hippocampal/anterior-thalamic axis is the presence of projections
    back from the diencephalon to the temporal cortex and hippocampus
    that also support episodic memory. In contrast, this hippocampal
    system is not required for tests of item recognition that primarily
    tax familiarity judgements. Familiarity judgements reflect an
    independent process that depends on a distinct system involving the
    perirhinal cortex of the temporal lobe and the medial dorsal
    nucleus of the thalamus. In the large majority of amnesic cases,
    both the hippocampal/anterior-thalamic and the perirhinal/
    mediodorsal-thalamic systems are compromised, leading to severe
    deficits in both recall and recognition.

--------------------------------------------------------------
To help you decide whether you would be an appropriate commentator for
this article, an electronic draft is retrievable from the World Wide
Web or by anonymous ftp or gopher from the US or UK BBS Archive.
Ftp instructions follow below. Please do not prepare a commentary on
this draft. Just let us know, after having inspected it, what relevant
expertise you feel you would bring to bear on what aspect of the
article.

The URLs you can use to get to the BBS Archive:

    http://www.princeton.edu/~harnad/bbs/
    http://www.cogsci.soton.ac.uk/bbs/Archive/bbs.aggleton.html
    ftp://ftp.princeton.edu/pub/harnad/BBS/bbs.aggleton
    ftp://ftp.cogsci.soton.ac.uk/pub/bbs/Archive/bbs.aggleton
    gopher://gopher.princeton.edu:70/11/.libraries/.pujournals

To retrieve a file by ftp from an Internet site, type either:
ftp ftp.princeton.edu
   or
ftp 128.112.128.1
   When you are asked for your login, type:
anonymous
   Enter password as queried (your password is your actual userid:
   yourlogin at yourhost.whatever.whatever - be sure to include the "@")
cd /pub/harnad/BBS
   To show the available files, type:
ls
   Next, retrieve the file you want with (for example):
get bbs.aggleton
   When you have the file(s) you want, type:
quit