These things take time: what is the role of the hippocampus in recognition memory over extended delays?

In a clever experimental design, Tallman, Clark, and Smith (this issue) tested the changes in fMRI activation and functional connectivity in the hippocampus and cortex as a function of memory age. They found that activation changed according to a power function (both increasing and decreasing) in several cortical regions but not within the hippocampus or medial temporal lobe (MTL). Further, functional connectivity increased with memory age between cortical regions but decreased for the hippocampus. Taken together, these results offer strong support for the standard consolidation model. However, they leave open the question of what role the hippocampus plays in recognition memory performance.