No Pattern Separation in the Human Hippocampus

Published on November 6, 2020

Pattern separation is a basic principle of neuronal coding that precludes memory interference in the hippocampus. Its existence is supported by numerous theoretical, computational, and experimental findings in different species. However, I argue that recent evidence from single-neuron recordings suggests that pattern separation may not be present in the human hippocampus and that memories are instead coded by the coactivation of invariant and context-independent engrams. This alternative model prompts a reassessment of the definition of episodic memory and its distinction from semantic memory.

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