Hippocampus Hippocampus The hippocampus (named after its resemblance to the seahorse, from the Greek ἱππόκαμπος, "seahorse" from ἵππος "hippos", "horse" and κάμπος "kampos", "sea monster") is a major component of the brains of humans and other vertebrates. Humans and other mammals have two hippocampi, one in each side of the brain. The hippocampus belongs to the limbic system and plays important roles in the consolidation of information from short-term memory to long-term memory, and in spatial memory that enables navigation. The hippocampus is located under the cerebral cortex (allocortical) and in primates in the medial temporal lobe. It contains two main
Hippocampal memory encoding and retrieval Hippocampal memory encoding and retrieval The hippocampus participates in the encoding and retrieval of memories. The hippocampus is located in the medial temporal lobe (subcortical), and is an infolding of the medial temporal cortex. The hippocampus plays an important role in the transfer of information from short-term memory to long-term memory during encoding and retrieval stages. These stages need not occur successively, but are, as studies indicate, broadly divided in the neuronal mechanisms they require or even in the hippocampal areas they activate. According to Gazzaniga, "encoding is the processing of incoming information that creates memory traces to be stored."