The possible contribution of the septal region to memory

A particularly well-documented, intelligent patient (H.I.) with very selective, minute, but most likely bilateral damage of the basal forebrain including the septal region is presented. Though behavioral progress was found for a number of areas, she remained deficient, especially in long-term memory. The severest and largely modality-nonspecific deficits were observed in recall (as opposed to recognition) situations. As a peculiar finding which we would attribute to septal damage, H.I. was mainly affected in tests containing emotional (especially emotionally negative) stimuli, or certain flavours. While this involvement might have helped her in memorizing material judged as positive, it was of negative influence under other circumstances. The septal area may serve as an interface contributing a specific combination of emotional flavour and evaluating (feedback) judgement to a larger (septo-hippocampal-amygdalar) memory and learning processing network.