Lateral asymmetry in remoteness may also interact with age. Many individuals with selective bilateral hippocampal damage are older adults (Spiers et al 2001), as are many semantic dementia cases. Older subjects may be more dependent on the right HP than young subjects. Since the right HP is more active for recent events, then damage to this structure in older subjects may be more likely to produce a temporal gradient. Interestingly, Kopelman et al (1989) found that young amnestic patients showed a relatively flat temporal gradient, whereas older amnestic patients demonstrated a more marked gradient.
