What role does the hippocampus play in memory?

The hippocampus is a vital structure in the brain, primarily associated with the formation of new memories and learning processes. This region is particularly important for converting short-term memories into long-term storage, which is essential for retaining information over time. The hippocampus is involved in declarative memory, which includes facts and events that can be consciously recalled.

When new experiences occur, the hippocampus helps to encode and integrate these experiences, enabling the brain to create a coherent narrative or memory trace. Thus, it facilitates the storage of information by first helping to establish new memories before they are consolidated into long-term memory storage, often involving other regions of the brain, especially the cortex.

While the other options touch on aspects of memory and learning, they either misidentify the primary functions attributed to the hippocampus or focus on other processes that are not the primary role of this brain structure. For example, long-term memory storage and procedural memory are more associated with different brain regions, not specifically the hippocampus. Sensory information processing is primarily managed by areas devoted to sensory modalities, such as the occipital lobe for vision or the temporal lobe for auditory processing, rather than the hippocampus itself.