title: Bigger is better! Hippocampal volume and declarative memory performance in healthy young men.
abstract: The importance of the hippocampus for declarative memory processes is firmly established. Nevertheless, the issue of a correlation between declarative memory performance and hippocampal volume in healthy subjects still remains controversial. The aim of the present study was to investigate this relationship in more detail. For this purpose, 50 healthy young male participants performed the California Verbal Learning Test. Hippocampal volume was assessed by manual segmentation of high-resolution 3D magnetic resonance images. We found a significant positive correlation between putatively hippocampus-dependent memory measures like short-delay retention, long-delay retention and discriminability and percent hippocampal volume. No significant correlation with measures related to executive processes was found. In addition, percent amygdala volume was not related to any of these measures. Our data advance previous findings reported in studies of brain-damaged individuals in a large and homogeneous young healthy sample and are important for theories on the neural basis of episodic memory.
authors.affiliation: Department of Cognitive and Clinical Neuroscience, Central Institute of Mental Health, Medical Faculty Mannheim, Heidelberg University, Square J 5, 68159, Mannheim, Germany.
authors.forename: Sebastian T
authors.initials: ST
authors.lastname: Pohlack
authors.forename: Patric
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Meyer
authors.forename: Raffaele
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Cacciaglia
authors.forename: Claudia
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Liebscher
authors.forename: Stephanie
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Ridder
authors.forename: Herta
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Flor
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000679:Amygdala; D015331:Cohort Studies; D064368:Healthy Volunteers; D006624:Hippocampus / Q000033:anatomy & histology* / Q000502:physiology; D006801:Humans; D007091:Image Processing, Computer-Assisted; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging; D008297:Male; D008568:Memory / Q000502:physiology*; D009483:Neuropsychological Tests; D013223:Statistics as Topic; D014706:Verbal Learning / Q000502:physiology*; D055815:Young Adult