The hippocampus, an important structure in the medial temporal lobe, has long been considered critical to declarative memory. Loss of oxygen to the hippocampus may result in damage and subsequent anterograde amnesia (i.e. an inability to form new memories). Anterograde amnesia compromises the ability of amnesics to create, update and juxtapose mental representations that can be used in service of declarative memory. Generally, people with amnesia have been considered to have intact remote memory and an otherwise unremarkable neuropsychological profile, meaning that their sole deficit is forming new memories. However, new research has indicated that the functioning of the hippocampus may extend beyond its contributions to memory. For example, the ability to create and tell stories requires the ability to bring together multiple representations. When telling an autobiographical account or spontaneously create a story amnesics tend to omit details of episodic memory such as time, place, and emotional states specific to the event. This impoverished event recollection extends across all time periods including both past- and future-thinking; making narrative construction effortful and significantly less detailed than stories generated by individuals without memory impairment. This research obtained discourse samples from elicited personal narratives such as a historical event or frightening experience, picture descriptions, story retellings and picture narratives. These samples were subjected to a coding procedure which identified the number and class of details that composed a story. The results suggest that there is a marked disruption in the “episodicness” of narratives produced by amnesics compared to healthy comparison subjects."