Mondo Knows Facts
The hippocampus replays the day to build memories
During sleep, it reactivates recent patterns and passes them to the cortex Place cells in the hippocampus fire in sequences that mirror an animal's path, and during slow-wave sleep those sequences run again faster. The replay is thought to help transfer the day's experience to cortical storage. Damage to both hippocampi leaves a person unable to form new lasting memories. It sits in Mondo's human body collection, one of 200 facts that each trace back to the reference below.
Where this comes from
Facts that can change over time are reviewed and updated. If something here looks wrong, Mondo would rather know than be confidently incorrect.
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Tags: memory, hippocampus, sleep
The hippocampus replays the day to build memories: the short answers
- Where does this come from, and can I check it?
- During sleep, it reactivates recent patterns and passes them to the cortex. The figure is taken from NIMH, which is linked in full on this page. Every fact on Mondo Knows names its source rather than repeating an unsourced claim.
- Is this really a human body fact?
- Yes. It sits on the Human Body shelf, one of 2,600 sourced facts grouped into space, animals, the human body, history, science and more. Category pages collect every fact in the same field.
- What else can I read about it?
- The links under the fact point to a quiz, game, puzzle or calculator on the same subject, and the shelf below shows related facts. The wording here is original, and quoted phrases are marked as quotations.