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 neuropsychologist
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 hippocampi
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.

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.
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
trivial." 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, Molecules Of Emotion. New York, 1997. p.143.
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.

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.