“…One prominent feature of hippocampal neuron activity is a clear sensitivity to stimulus novelty (Knight, 1996; Stern et al, 1996; Dolan and Fletcher, 1997; Vinogradova, 2001; Rutishauser et al, 2006), suggesting that the hippocampus may act as a novelty detector (Parkin, 1997; Kumaran and Maguire, 2007). Supporting this idea, novelty exposure influences synaptic plasticity in the hippocampus (Manahan-Vaughan and Braunewell, 1999; Lemon and Manahan-Vaughan, 2006), and hippocampal-lesioned animals display deficits in novelty detection (Buhusi et al, 1998; Allen et al, 2002; Hunsaker et al, 2008). The novelty-dependent activation of hippocampal neurons is likely to be a critical feature for learning, allowing circuit modifications that optimize stimulus prediction.…”