The study by Fortin, Agster, and Eichenbaum investigates the critical role of the hippocampus in memory for sequences of events. They found that hippocampal lesions in rats significantly impair their ability to remember the sequential ordering of a series of odors, despite maintaining intact recognition memory for the individual odors. This suggests that the hippocampus is essential for remembering the temporal order of events that constitute unique episodes. The researchers compared the performance of control rats and those with hippocampal lesions on both sequential order memory tasks and recognition tasks. While control rats performed well on both tasks, rats with hippocampal lesions showed near-chance performance on the sequential order task but normal recognition performance. These findings support the hypothesis that the hippocampus mediates associations between sequential events, which are crucial for episodic memory. The study also highlights the importance of the hippocampus in memory for sequences of events, independent of spatial context.The study by Fortin, Agster, and Eichenbaum investigates the critical role of the hippocampus in memory for sequences of events. They found that hippocampal lesions in rats significantly impair their ability to remember the sequential ordering of a series of odors, despite maintaining intact recognition memory for the individual odors. This suggests that the hippocampus is essential for remembering the temporal order of events that constitute unique episodes. The researchers compared the performance of control rats and those with hippocampal lesions on both sequential order memory tasks and recognition tasks. While control rats performed well on both tasks, rats with hippocampal lesions showed near-chance performance on the sequential order task but normal recognition performance. These findings support the hypothesis that the hippocampus mediates associations between sequential events, which are crucial for episodic memory. The study also highlights the importance of the hippocampus in memory for sequences of events, independent of spatial context.