Conference on Cognitive Computational Neuroscience

The hippocampus has long been appreciated to exhibit specialization along its long axis. Recently, a within-individual fMRI approach which leverages data from densely sampled participants identified preferential functional connectivity from the anterior and posterior hippocampus to cerebral networks DN-A and SAL / PMN, respectively. Building on this work, we explored the functional responses of these hippocampal regions in two independent cohorts of extensively scanned individuals (n = 9 and n = 11). We replicated the differential functional connectivity in both data sets and characterized a functional double dissociation between the anterior and posterior hippocampus. The anterior region was sensitive to the extent that participants engaged in scene construction, while the posterior region showed transient activation in response to salient stimuli. These findings support the important role of the anterior hippocampus in scene processing and suggest a role for the posterior hippocampus in processing salient stimuli.