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	Podcast:		UC Science Today
	Episode:		Study reveals a new role of the hippocampus
	Category:		Science & Medicine
	Duration:		00:01:03
	Publish Date:		2016-10-31 16:08:26
	Description:		Researchers may be a step closer to curing Alzheimer's disease. Robert Knight, a cognitive neuroscientist at the University of California, Berkeley discovered a new role of the hippocampus. This is the part of the brain where Alzheimer's often starts – and this new insight could bring new hope to patients. "If you look at these patients with hippocampal damage, they have never been studied in what I would say, a sophisticated manner in terms of their language." That’s because until now, the hippocampus was known only for storing new memories, but as Knight’s study found, it's also involved in generating language. "It is not just being told what to do by the cortex and the language areas, they are both contributing to effective language capacities. It kind of elevates the hippocampus out of the memory field and puts it into a cognitive domain, in this case language." With this knowledge, Knight says new treatment strategies can be developed to restore both memory and language functions that are damaged in Alzheimer's patients.
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