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
Short-term memory have proposed that stimuli are coded in short-term memory using transmitter depletion. According to this hypothesis, a stimulus activates a spatial pattern of activity across neurons in a brain region. As these neurons fire, the available neurotransmitters in their store are depleted and this pattern of depletion is iconic, representing stimulus information and functions as a memory trace. The memory trace decays over time as a consequence of neurotransmitter reuptake mechanisms that restore neurotransmitters to the levels that existed prior to stimulus presentation. The relationship between short-term memory and working memory is described differently by various theories, but it is