Memories for events experienced during infancy and early childhood are rarely recollected later in life—a phenomenon termed infantile and childhood amnesia. The formation and retrieval of such episodic memories relies, in part, on the hippocampus. Characterizing the role of hippocampal development in offsetting infantile and childhood amnesia is key to understanding (i) why infantile and childhood amnesia occur and (ii) how episodic memory capacities develop in early ontogeny. Comparative research is necessary for this enterprise because many paradigms and techniques work better with humans or with non-human animals. The four papers in this symposium gather current work in developmental psychology, developmental cognitive neuroscience, and behavioral neuroscience that characterizes the complex and heterogenous developmental profile of behavioral gains in component processes underlying episodic memory capacity in humans and work on the mammalian hippocampus and how it accompanies development. By leveraging and triangulating multiple levels of analyses, we can gain insights that are unavailable using a siloed approach. This collection of work helps delineate clear future directions for a comparative approach in memory development.

Introduction

Heterogeneity of segmentation protocols for medial temporal lobe regions and hippocampal subfields on in vivo magnetic resonance imaging hinders the ability to integrate findings across studies. We aim to develop a harmonized protocol based on expert consensus and histological evidence.

Methods

Our international working group, funded by the EU Joint Programme-Neurodegenerative Disease Research (JPND), is working toward the production of a reliable, validated, harmonized protocol for segmentation of medial temporal lobe regions. The working group uses a novel postmortem data set and online consensus procedures to ensure validity and facilitate adoption.

Results

This progress report describes the initial results and milestones that we have achieved to date, including the development of a draft protocol and results from the initial reliability tests and consensus procedures.

Discussion

A harmonized protocol will enable the standardization of segmentation methods across laboratories interested in medial temporal lobe research worldwide.