Learning to find your way: a role for the human hippocampal formation
Related Experiment Video
Updated: Nov 2, 2026

Horizontal Hippocampal Slices of the Mouse Brain
Published on: September 22, 2020
E A Maguire1, R S Frackowiak, C D Frith
1Wellcome Department of Cognitive Neurology, Institute of Neurology, London, U.K. emaguire@fil.ion.ucl.ac.uk
Abstract:
The importance of the hippocampal formation of the brain for allocentric spatial mapping of the environment has been suggested by animal lesion and electrophysiological work. Here we describe a positron emission tomography (PET) study designed to investigate the regional cerebral blood flow changes associated with topographical memory formation in humans, i.e. the formation of representations of large-scale environments necessary for way-finding. Topographical learning of an urban environment from viewing of film footage depicting navigation was associated with activation of the right parahippocampal gyrus and hippocampus, with activation also of the left parahippocampal gyrus. In addition, there was activity in the pretuneus. In contrast, the encoding of non-navigation episodic memory in a similar realworld context was not associated with activity in the hippocampal formation. Our results shed light on the neural basis of the human representation of large-scale space pinpointing a particular role for the human hippocampal formation in learning to find one's way.
More Related Videos
08:37A Video Demonstration of Preserved Piloting by Scent Tracking but Impaired Dead Reckoning After Fimbria-Fornix Lesions in the Rat
Published on: April 24, 2009
10:45Preparation of Acute Slices from Dorsal Hippocampus for Whole-Cell Recording and Neuronal Reconstruction in the Dentate Gyrus of Adult Mice
Published on: April 3, 2021
Related Concept Videos
Role of Hippocampus in Memory
Functional Brain Systems: Limbic System
Olfaction
The olfactory receptors are embedded in the cilia of the...
Role of Amygdala in Memory
One of the...
Role of Cerebellum and Prefrontal Cortex in Memory
Higher Mental Functions of Brain: Learning and Memory