Patients with hippocampal amnesia cannot imagine new experiences

• DOI: 10.1073/pnas.0610561104
• Publication Date: 2007-01-18T01:50:34Z
• Authors: Demis Hassabis; Dharshan Kumaran; Seralynne D. Vann; Eleanor A. Maguire
• Keywords: Representation; Affect; Autobiographical Memory

Amnesic patients have a well established deficit in remembering their past experiences. Surprisingly, however, the question as to whether such can imagine new experiences has not been formally addressed our knowledge. We tested group of amnesic with primary damage hippocampus bilaterally could construct imagined response short verbal cues that outlined range simple commonplace scenarios. Our results revealed were markedly impaired relative matched control subjects at imagining Moreover, we identified possible source for this deficit. The patients' lacked spatial coherence, consisting instead fragmented images absence holistic representation environmental setting. hippocampus, therefore, may make critical contribution creation by providing context into which disparate elements an experience be bound. Given how closely match episodic memories, function mediated also fundamentally affect ability vividly re-experience past.