The role of the hippocampus in flexible cognition and social behavior

Abstract

Successful behavior requires actively acquiring and representing information about the environment and people, and manipulating and using those acquired representations flexibly to optimally act in and on the world. The frontal lobes have figured prominently in most accounts of flexible or goal-directed behavior, as evidenced by often-reported behavioral inflexibility in individuals with frontal lobe dysfunction. Here, we propose that the hippocampus also plays a critical role by forming and reconstructing relational memory representations that underlie flexible cognition and social behavior. There is mounting evidence that damage to the hippocampus can produce inflexible and maladaptive behavior when such behavior places high demands on the generation, recombination, and flexible use of information. This is seen in abilities as diverse as memory, navigation, exploration, imagination, creativity, decision-making, character judgments, establishing and maintaining social bonds, empathy, social discourse, and language use. Thus, the hippocampus, together with its extensive interconnections with other neural systems, supports the flexible use of information in general. Further, we suggest that this understanding has important clinical implications. Hippocampal abnormalities can produce profound deficits in real-world situations, which typically place high demands on the flexible use of information, but are not always obvious on diagnostic tools tuned to frontal lobe function. This review documents the role of the hippocampus in supporting flexible representations and aims to expand our understanding of the dynamic networks that operate as we move through and create meaning of our world.

Structural learning difficulties implicate altered hippocampal functioning in adults with autism spectrum disorder.

“…The aim of this study was to examine the functional integrity of a hippocampal process known as Structural Learning in ASD that could play a critical role in the aetiology of the disorder because of its wide reaching involvement in many functional domains (Rubin et al, 2014). By adapting a paradigm from the non-human animal learning literature, it was possible to examine Structural Learning as well as other forms of configural learning that pose very similar processing requirements and that need minimal verbal instructions.…”

“…The central nervous system thus faces the computational challenge of discriminating among experiences that share a great number of elements whilst extracting commonalities that serve effective adaptation to new situations. This problem is evident across numerous functional domains, ranging from spatial navigation and memory through imagination and creativity to social interaction and the use of language (e.g., Rubin et al, 2014). For example, when an animal learns to navigate its surroundings to forage for food, it needs to discriminate among various landmarks, represent the locations that have already been searched, and extract commonalities among the locations that have been visited to effectively seek out new sources of food.…”

“…across a large number of pragmatic contexts in order to develop an understanding of social norms, conventions and interpersonal relations that govern successful interactions with others. The hippocampus has for long been known to mediate these computational demands in the context of spatial navigation, learning and memory (O'Keefe & Nadel, 1978;Rudy & Sutherland, 1995;Sutherland & Rudy, 1989) and more recently it has also been implicated in higher order cognitive domains such as imagination, language and social interaction (Rubin et al, 2014;Schiller et al, 2015). This raises the possibility that hippocampal abnormalities play a critical role in the aetiology of Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD), which is characterised by abnormalities across many of these functional domains.…”

Morphometric characteristics of neurons in the hippocampal CA1-CA4 fields of the American

“…Dzięki temu hipokamp może odgrywać rolę w regulacji sensytyzacji procesów "chcenia" i w ten sposób wpływać na rozwój uzależ-nienia. Przypuszcza się, że hipokamp bierze udział w kontrolowaniu wielu procesów behawioralnych, których większość wydaje się uwikłana w patogenezę uzależnień (18,19). Zwierzęta z uszkodzonymi hipokampami wykazują zwiększoną aktywność motoryczną, zwiększoną impulsywność i zaburzenia habituacji.…”

190. Social Cognition in Early Schizophrenia: Exploratory Factor Analysis and Subcortical Biomarkers

“…The hippocampus and amygdala are the major subcortical structures associated with social cognitive ability (Adolphs, 2010;Rubin, Watson, Duff, & Cohen, 2014).…”