All in Order

Visual memory, the ability to recall what we've seen, involves both the visual cortex, the part of the brain receiving information from the eyes, and the hippocampus, known to be critical for learning. To better define the function of this area, scientists tested the performance of mice with a damaged hippocampus; pictured are cross-sections of a normal mouse brain (top) and one lacking much of the hippocampus (bottom). Mice can learn individual visual patterns as well as the order in which they are presented, and recording electrical responses from relevant brain areas can demonstrate whether mice perceive images as familiar. Mice with a damaged hippocampus could still recognise single patterns, but their response to sequences of images in familiar or unusual orders was disrupted. The hippocampus thus seems necessary for remembering how stimuli relate to each other, moving us one step closer to understanding how complex memories are made.

Written by Emmanuelle Briolat

Emmanuelle Briolat

Writer

A researcher specialising in visual signals in Lepidoptera, camouflage and the effects of light pollution, Emmanuelle’s writing covers a range of topics, from biomedical research to children’s books about moth defences.

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• Image from work by Peter S.B. Finnie, Robert W. Komorowski and Mark F. Bear
• Massachusetts Institute of Technology, The Picower Institute for Learning and Memory, Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, Cambridge, MA, USA
• Image copyright held by the original authors
• Research published in Current Biology, July 2021