The Neuropsychology of Autobiographical Memory The medial temporal lobe memory system includes the hippocampus formation and the adjacent parahippocampal and perirhinal coices. The hippocampus is not the place where the content of memories is stored, but rather appears to contain a set of neural links to the content, which is distributed widely throughout the coex. Memories of an episode in one's life typically contain information from more than one modality: vision, hearing, and even taste, touch, and smell. Each of these components is stored in a unimodal sensory area, for example, the visual components of an episodic memory are stored in the visual coex in the occipital lobe, while the auditory components are stored in the auditory coex in the temporal lobe. These distributed representations are linked to a central index in the hippocampus. When recent episodes are retrieved, the index is reactivated, causing activation to spread to each of the associated unimodal areas. This is more correct of recent episodes, however. Once a representation of an episode has been fully consolidated, activation can spread between the separate features themselves, so that hippocampal activation is no longer needed. We are also beginning to gain an understanding of the brain areas that comprise the frontal components of the medial temporal lobe memory system. Medial temporal and hippocampal regions tend to be more involved in spatial context memory, while the frontocoical region, the diencephalon, and the temporal lobes are involved in temporal context memory. Much has also been learned about the neural bases of sho-term memory systems located in the frontal lobes. Psychologists have had trouble determining whether there is one type of sho-term memory, or several. The time span involved - exactly what 'sho' means - is also not widely agreed upon. In the 1980s, however, neuroscientists began exploring a large area in the dorsolateral poion of the prefrontal lobes. This area seems to be responsible for a so of memory that has been called 'working memory' - a concept that at least overlaps with the psychologist's concept of sho-term memory. Ref Harrison20th edition pg 2235