consolidation: "It is possible to imagine that initially the cohesiveness of the working corital network that represents the memory depends on an ongoing dialogue with the hippocampus and the medial thalamus. However, as the network becomes established, seemingly over a period of several years, gradually the subcortical structures become less important, such that eventually...an established memory can remain intact, freed from, and entirely independent of, the hippocampus." S. Greenfield, The Human Brain. New York, 1997. p.135.
declarative memory: "The generally accepted taxonomy is due to the San Diego neuropsycholigist Larry Squire, who distinguishes first between declarative and procedural memory--knowing that and knowing how. Knowing that an object with a saddle, two wheels and handlebars is called a bicycle is declarative; knowing how to get on it and ride it is procedural. These two types of memory seem to rely on different cellular, brain and bodily mechanisms, for the first is much more readily lost then the second (you can ride a bike even after a twenty year gap with almost no need for rehearsal). Declarative memory subdivides into semantic (knowing what doctors do) and episodic (knowing that I went to the doctor's last Tuesday)." S.P.R. Rose, "How Brains Make Memories." In, Memory. P. Fara and K. Patterson, Editors. Cambridge, England. 1998. p.140.
An alternative terminology:
"Our ability to remember events reflects not the operation of a single memory system but a combination of at least two strategies used by the brain to acquire information. One set of strategies, termed explicit memory, underlies memory for events and the circumstances of their occurrence; it requires conscious participation and involves the hippocampus and the temporal lobes of the cerebral cortex. The other set of strategies, implicit memory, encodes information about perceptual and motor skills, using non-cortical structures and requiring no conscious participation. Many learning tasks require both memory systems."
E. Kandel, "A Center at Columbia on Mind, Brain, and Memory."
as a nighttime dream: "In the 1950s, researchers at UCLA discovered a new form of brain wave--a regular pattern called a theta rhythm--emanating from the hippocampui of rabbits....In the waking hours, the distinctive theta rhythms seemed to appear when animals were responding to new stimuli or honing their survival behaviors...During sleep, identical theta rhythms resurfaced during episodes of REM, suggesting that the original theta experiences are being replayed and transferred into long-term memory. When theta rhythms were blocked, spatial memories in exploring rats promptly disappeared." R. Rupp, Committed To Memory. New York, 1998. p.68.
Also, during REM sleep, the brain discharges high levels of acetylcholine, a neurotransmitter produced by about 15% of its neurons, particularly those of the hippocampus. This points to the possibility that this memory-reinforcing organ is active while we dream.
some older anatomists: J.H. Austin. Zen and the Brain. Cambridge, MA., 1998. p.180. Dr. Austin's thought begins by remembering that "Years ago the same curl of the hippocampus also reminded some anatomists of the ram's horn, or cornu, associated with Ammon, a mythological figure in ancient Egypt."
place fields: "Describing these (CA1) cells as 'place cells' gives too narrow a view of their functional role. Rather, they should be viewed as 'relational cells,' as they seem to encode various relationships among critical cues and the relations to specific behavoral events." C.G. Gross, Brain, Vision, Memory. Cambridge, MA., 1998. p. 112. CA=cornu ammonis.
Manipura chakra: Like all aspects of the brain, certain attributes of the hippocampus spill over; here, for example, to the amygdala. Thus, the Manipura chakra "is very closely associated with feelings and emotions of various kinds. Its predominant colour is a curious blending of several shades of red, though there is also a good deal of green in it." C.W. Leadbeater, The Chakras. Wheaton, IL., 1977. p.13.
Synesthesia: "I have identified the hippocampus as the main node that makes synesthesia possible. The hippocampus is a major component of the limbic system and resides in the temporal lobe, tucked away next to the brainstem, literally folded beneath the cortex...The strongest reason for singling out the hippocampus is anatomic. Only here is it possible to bring together information that was processed in functionally and geographically separate parts of the brain. These gathered signals flow into a unique structure that also knows about the internal milieu as well as the fundamental drives of the organism as a biological entity. The hippocampus can also respond back to virtually every entity that originally fed into it, including the autonomic structures that govern the internal milieu. It is here that the autonomic responses could add the pleasure that synesthetes feel during their multisensory experiences." R.E. Cytowic, The Man Who Tasted Shapes. New York, 1993. p.166.
Aphrodite Epitragia: "Aphrodite Epitragia rides nude on the back of a running sheep; like Europa, she holds the animal's horn in one hand and a mirror in the other." B. Johnson, Lady of the Beasts. San Francisco, 1988. p.204.
Hermes: "The stone-heaps were placed along the roads to mark them; they also marked the boundaries between villages, cities, and regions, landmarks fixing the boundaries and frontiers. These heaps of stones that used to mark the geographical roads and frontiers, were also primitive altars consecrated to Hermes. The stone heap is in fact an archetypal image of a God. Therefore we can say, this God, Hermes, 'Lord of the Roads' as he came to be known, also marks our psychological roads and boundaries; he marks the borderlines of our psychological frontiers and marks the territory where the foreign, the alien, begins in our psyche." R. Lopez-Pedraza, Hermes and His Children. Zurich, Switzerland, 1977. p.3.
post-traumatic stress: "Most of the recent PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder) imagery studies have found atrophy only in the hippocampus; the rest of the brain is fine. The damage, however, is not traval." R. Sapolsky, "Stress and Your Shrinking Brain." Discover. March 1999. p.118.
as a whole: "memories are stored not only in the brain, but in a psychosomatic network extending into the body, particularly in the ubiquitous receptors between nerves and bundles of cell bodies called ganglia, which are distributed not just in and near the spinal cord, but all the way out along pathways to internal organs and the very surface of our skin." C.B. Pert, Molecular Of Emotion. New York, 1997. p.143.