From the question above, the hippocampus is necessary for episodic memory but not for acquiring new semantic memory.
There are two subcategories of declarative memory: episodic and semantic memory.
Episodic Memories deals with specific things that had experienced while semantic memories deals with information of a factual nature.
Episodic memories represent our memory of specific events and experiences in time from which we can recollect or reconstruct the specific events that occurred at a point in our lives.
It is remembering things that happen serially in our lives. It is also seen as the memory of autobiographical events that can be expressed explicitly, this include the time the event took place, associated emotions and other important knowledge of such events. In these events, individual see themselves as actors and everything concerning the events as at that period becomes part of the memory.
Semantic is a record of fact, concept, meaning, and knowledge about the world at large that we have gained. It has to do with factual knowledge that an individual relate with another. Simply put semantic deals with fact like meaning of words.
Declarative memory is located in several parts of the brain, but the main areas are the cortex and hippocampus.
The function of hippocampus is to retain episodic memories. it records episodic memories, identifies similarities between events and episodes and store the events into a particular memory space.
LEARN MORE:
Recalling the definition of long-term memory
KEYWORDS:
episodic memories
semantic memory
declarative memory