Lateralized human hippocampal activity predicts navigation based on sequence or place memory.

Abstract

The hippocampus is crucial for both spatial navigation and episodic memory, suggesting that it provides a common function to both. Here we adapt a spatial paradigm, developed for rodents, for use with functional MRI in humans to show that activation of the right hippocampus predicts the use of an allocentric spatial representation, and activation of the left hippocampus predicts the use of a sequential egocentric representation. Both representations can be identified in hippocampal activity before their effect on behavior at subsequent choice-points. Our results suggest that, rather than providing a single common function, the two hippocampi provide complementary representations for navigation, concerning places on the right and temporal sequences on the left, both of which likely contribute to different aspects of episodic memory.