Ripples of activity in the hippocampus prepare the brain for surprising events

The human brain continuously makes predictions about future events.

This process helps humans process familiar stimuli while also allowing them to direct particular attention to unexpected or unfamiliar events and derive important new information.

While various past studies explored how the brain predicts familiar occurrences, fewer have tried to uncover the mechanisms that prepare it for surprising events.

One region known to play a role in experience-informed future predictions is the hippocampus, the brain's primary long-term memory center. ...