New Study Shows No Cognitive Impairment in Monkeys with Damaged Hippocampi
A new study in the journal Science Advances “indicates that monkeys with damaged hippocampi can perform just as well as intact monkeys on a range of tasks that require visual memory, pattern recognition, and reasoning,” IFLScience.com reports.
To test established theories related to the hippocampus, the researchers surgically damaged the hippocampi of five rhesus monkeys before subjecting them to a number of cognitive tests designed to measure different aspects of neurological function. These tests included transitive inference, temporal order memory, shape recall, source memory, and image recognition.
The researchers found these monkeys scored just as well on every test as the control monkeys that did not have damaged hippocampi. These findings have led the study’s authors to conclude that “we should reassess the relative contributions of the hippocampus proper compared to other regions in visual memory and relational cognition.”
