Memory consolidation or transformation: context manipulation and hippocampal representations of memory

The traditional view is that the hippocampus is necessary for retaining memories until they are consolidated in their original form in the neocortex. An alternative view is that the original memory, which is hippocampus- and context- dependent, becomes transformed with time to one that is more schematic and independent of the hippocampus. By manipulating context in two protocols that are widely used to investigate hippocampal- neocortical interactions in memory, we find evidence for the transformation view.