Remembering where you have been helps remembering what you have done: the shared neuro-cognitive basis between spatial and episodic memory

Albert Postma

Experimental Psychology, Helmholtz Institute, Utrecht University, The Netherlands

Contents & Objectives
Episodic memory concerns our ability to remember personal events, such as yesterday’s diner or last week’s visit to the movies. Interestingly, episodic memory seems to be strongly linked to spatial memory systems in the brain. This tutorial will discuss the notion of a shared episodic-spatial memory link from an evolutionary (i.e how did the human ability to remember past events actually emerge), functional (what is the role of space processing in episodic memory), neurobiological (what is the common neural circuitry), and clinical perspective (i.e. to what extent do spatial orientation and wayfinding problems co-occur with episodic memory loss in neurological patients).