, 2012, Hasselmo and Wyble, 1997, Lisman and Grace, 2005 and Yassa and Stark, 2011). The VE-821 ic50 hippocampus may play a similar role in perception, tracking the strength of relational match/mismatch. These findings suggest that the hippocampus does not generally produce a state-based signal in long-term memory, but may produce state- or strength-based signals depending on the nature of the materials and demands of the task. In the current perception

study, we found a linearly graded signal from the hippocampus, which may be a result of complex, feature-ambiguous materials and/or a graded comparison process. The critical point is that it is necessary to assess state- and strength-based memory and perception to elucidate the role of the hippocampus

in these cognitive domains. Further studies examining the conditions in which the hippocampus produces state-based or strength-based output will be important. The current neuroimaging and patient findings converge to indicate that the hippocampus is involved in, and is necessary for, perceptual judgments of scenes, and this role is specific to perceptual judgments based on continuously graded strength signals. Scene perception based on discrete states of Akt inhibitor identifying specific differences does not seem to depend on the hippocampus. The findings highlight the surprising reach of the hippocampus, affording precision in both memory and perception. Both studies were approved by the University of California, Davis Institutional Review Board. Informed consent was obtained from all individuals prior to their participation. Mean age of the patients was 49.2 years (SD = 14.1) and mean education was 14.8 years (SD = 2.7). Mean age

of the controls was 47.7 years (SD = 15.6) and mean education was 15.2 years (SD = 2.0). Patients and controls were not significantly Activator different in age or education (t’s < 1). Each patient had 1–3 controls that were closely matched to the patient’s age and education. Patients. Patient characteristics and neuropsychological scores are shown in Table 1. Patient 1 had selective hippocampal damage following a traumatic brain injury due to a car accident. Clinical scans appeared normal with the exception of volume reductions in the hippocampus. Table 2 provides estimates of gray matter volume for MTL structures for this patient and age-matched controls. The left and right hippocampus were significantly reduced in volume for the patient compared to controls; no other MTL structure showed significant volume reduction ( Figure 1). Patient 2 had limbic encephalitis, and MRI scans suggested damage to the hippocampus bilaterally, with no damage apparent in the surrounding parahippocampal gyrus (Figure 1).