Given there's no such thing as a surgical procedure that doesn't involve potential risk to the patient - it all rather depends on what the alternatives of not performing surgery entails. I should imagine you're question all somewhat depends on which particular aspect of the hippocampus the surgeon in question would be wanting to access and why you happen to be asking in the first place. You have to admit. As an ice breaker at parties it's a bit of a stumper...
I just want to know if it were possible to access the hippocampus. I've read that is was located within inner layers.
Indeed, it is. But you have to remember, the brain is made up of two connected hemispheres squished together by the confines of the skull. As tissue goes they are both remarkably rubbery, have a great deal of squish in them. Going in from the side is relatively non-invasive. As I say, it all depends on which particular aspect of the Hippocampus you're after. Any use to you?
The hippocampus is dangerous. Do not go there. There are large, highly educated hippos dripping with intellectual arrogance who would stomp you as soon as quote Proust to you. Do not go there. That way lies flatness.
Okeeday. Well, first off it probably helps if you think of the Hippocampus as being not so much a structure within the brain - more part of an actual brain itself. We have two brains. The coral-like hemispheres we normally associate as being our "brains" are our main brain - these wrap around and cocoon an older, more primitive structure called the Limbic System. The Hippocampus is part of that inner structure. In older, more primitive creatures something very similar in form and structure is what passes for their entire brain. We retain this structure and augment its capacities basically by means of the cerebral tissue which encases it. Now, the Hippocampus itself does have a part to play in the formation of new memories, but memories of a certain type. Mostly spacial awareness. Severe damage, and we are talking first stage Alzheimer's - not damage so much as complete tissue degradation - can leave the person so afflicted as not being able to remember things like where they have just come from or where they are. However, we are talking here of something taking the entire structure out. Partial damage may give rise to short term memory problems associated with this sort of cognitive processing for a time, but this all depends on the degree of damage and basically this has all to do with the way the brain maps out the external environment. Older, longer term memories shouldn't be affected at all. The Hippocampus can also act as a memory buffer transferring information to the main part of your brain for longer term storage. Anything relatively recent, still stored in the buffer as it were, may become lost. But we are talking things like remembering the last rest room you used in visual detail, not forgetting what a toilet is nor how to use one. Longer term permanent damage may, and I can't stress the may in that enough, affect a person in this sort of way: but what it won't do is effect ones memories of who people are, what happened and why, etc, etc. The ability to recollect certain types of factual information may equally be effected, short term, but one could by the same token still sit down and learn a musical instrument from scratch and still know how to play it afterwards. Basically, as I say - the principal types of memory associated with this structure are all to do with spacial awareness. With the majority of the structure remaining intact, even with damage, it should continue to function perfectly normally. Basically one might encounter the odd, relatively minor glitch concerning remembering the details of places one has been, but overall the rest of ones memories should remain relatively unaffected. As to damage to the outer cortical tissue possibly caused as a result of surgical intrusion - it's possible there may be some relatively minor short term consequences associated not so much with memory loss, more accessing the file so as to speak. Kind of like having a word on the tip of your tongue - you know the word, but can't quite get to it. If happening at all it should remain a relatively minor incident and difficult to predict precisely in which exact way one would be effected in either respect. The brain is really not dissimilar to a hard drive on a computer - it uses random access and stores information where there is space to store it. Certain types of memories get stored in certain regions of the brain, but precisely where a given memory lies could be anyones guess. Overall, if recommended on the part of a surgeon, the potential risks involved in such a procedure would be considered minor in comparison to the necessity of mounting the procedure in the first place - so a surgeon really would be the most sane and informed person to ask regarding such matters. But overall though it's not like a lobotomy. A person undergoing a procedure to the Hippocampus should emerge the other side still very much themselves in every sense of the word. And don't forget, you actually have two of the things. Really the long term effects of surgery on one of them would be actually more minor than any over all description of the structure might in the first instance seem to suggest. Is that what you were after?
Yeah. That was some good stuff. So if we were after memories that we are currently thinking of right now, the cerebral cortex is the best place to go? Like even though memory is stored in different areas of the brain, they are all accessed by the cerebral cortex correct?
