Lower Levels of Task-Induced Hippocampal Activation Predict Better Performance on a Separate Verbal Memory Evaluation

Lower task-induced activation in right posterior hippocampus (pHPC) during an in-scanner paired associate learning task is negatively correlated with out-of-scanner CVLT-II verbal memory performance in 86 participants.

• Why it matters: The study addresses whether a previously reported hippocampal activation–memory link reflects a reliable neurobiological association rather than a spurious finding.
• What they did: It replicated Wig et al. (2008) by testing the relationship between pHPC activation during a Lithuanian-English paired associate learning task and CVLT-II performance, then extended it with an exploratory voxel-wise analysis across medial temporal lobe regions.
• The result: The same negative correlation was found for pHPC, and voxel-wise analysis showed negative correlations between CVLT-II performance and task-induced activity in the left perirhinal/entorhinal cortex, right parahippocampal gyrus, and left posterior hippocampus.