생화학분자생물학회

	Bong-Kiun Kaang (kaang@ibs.re.kr)
	1992-1994	Postdoctoral Research Fellow (Eric R. Kandel’s Lab), Center for Neurobiology and Behavior, Columbia University
	1994-1998	Assistant Professor, Institute for Molecular Biology and Genetics, Seoul National University
	1998-2000	Associate Professor, Institute for Molecular Biology and Genetics, Seoul National University
	2000-2004	Associate Professor, Department of Biological Sciences, College of Natural Sciences, Seoul National University
	2004-2023	Professor, Department of Biological Sciences, College of Natural Sciences, Seoul National University
	2009-2014	Professor, Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, College of Natural Sciences, Seoul National University
	2015-2018	Chair Professor, Frontier Institute of Science and Technology, Xi'an Jiaotong University
	2016-2018	Director, Interdisciplinary Program in Neuroscience, College of Natural Sciences, Seoul National University
	2017-2019	Chair, School of Biological Sciences, College of Natural Sciences, Seoul National University
	2021-2023	Distinguished Professor, Seoul National University
	2023-present	Director, Center for Cognition and Sociality, IBS
	2024-present	Adjunct Professor, Department of Biological Sciences, KAIST
	2025	Member, National Academy of Sciences, Republic of Korea
	2026	Recipient of the Science and Technology Medal of Innovation, Republic of Korea

Role of the hippocampus in systems consolidation of remote fear memory

For decades, the processing and retrieval of memories over weeks or even years have been crucial and fundamental subjects in neuroscience. The hippocampus is essential for episodic memory, including associative fear memory. During remote fear memory formation, the hippocampus serves as an original source of fear memory and distributes memory contents to various brain regions, including the neocortex. Remote memory has a unique feature in terms of the cooperation between distributed regions to restore the original memory trace. Although the hippocampus has traditionally been considered crucial for recent memory processing, several studies have demonstrated that it is also directly involved in remote memory processing. This raises the crucial question: how does the hippocampus transfer the memory trace and at the same time retain recent memory properties? In this Review, we summarize various systems consolidation theories and compare the time-dependent changes in the hippocampus and neocortex. Subsequently, we address the role of the hippocampus and the molecular factors involved in remote memory processing, emphasizing the long-term engagement of the hippocampus. Finally, we aim to investigate memory transfer from the hippocampus to the cortical areas during systems consolidation and examine how this process contributes to fear memory generalization.

Exp Mol Med. 2026 Apr;58(4):1010-1016. doi: 10.1038/s12276-026-01680-9.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/41974891/