Question

Passage:
For decades, neuroscientists have sought to elucidate the mechanisms underlying memory consolidation, the process by which transient, labile memories are stabilized into long-term representations. The dominant paradigm for much of the late twentieth century was the Standard Consolidation Theory (SCT), most thoroughly articulated by Larry Squire and Pablo Alvarez in 1995. According to SCT, the hippocampus serves as a temporary repository and binding agent for new information. Over time, through repeated replay of the neural activity patterns that encode the memory, the connections between distributed neocortical areas are strengthened. Eventually, these cortical networks become capable of supporting the memory independently, rendering the hippocampus obsolete for the retrieval of older memories. This systems-level perspective elegantly explained the phenomenon of temporally graded retrograde amnesia, wherein recent memories are disproportionately impaired following hippocampal damage, while remote memories remain largely intact.

However, subsequent empirical anomalies—most notably the finding that patients with extensive hippocampal lesions often experience lifelong deficits in recalling rich, autobiographical episodes regardless of the memory's age—prompted theoretical revisions. In 1997, Lynn Nadel and Morris Moscovitch introduced the Multiple Trace Theory (MTT). MTT diverges from SCT by positing that the hippocampus is permanently required for the retrieval of detailed, context-rich episodic memories. According to this model, every time an episodic memory is retrieved, a new memory trace is formed in the hippocampus. Older memories are often more resilient to partial brain damage not because they have become entirely independent of the hippocampus, but because they are supported by a greater number of distributed traces than more recently acquired memories. By contrast, MTT maintains that semantic memories—factual knowledge devoid of spatial and temporal context—can indeed become independent of the hippocampus over time.

Seeking to bridge the divide between these models, researchers subsequently developed the Trace Transformation Theory (TTT). TTT proposes that memory consolidation is not merely a quantitative process of trace multiplication or a simple transfer of location, but rather a qualitative transformation of the memory's fundamental nature. Over time, the rich, idiosyncratic details of an episodic memory are stripped away, leaving a generalized, schematic "gist" that is stored in the neocortex. While the original, detail-rich memory remains dependent on the hippocampus, the newly transformed schematic memory can be retrieved independently of it.

Running parallel to these systems-level debates, the Synaptic Tagging and Capture (STC) hypothesis addresses consolidation at the micro-cellular level. The STC model explains how early, transient synaptic changes are stabilized. It posits that local synaptic activity creates a temporary "tag," which subsequently captures plasticity-related proteins synthesized in the cell body, thereby ensuring that only the appropriately stimulated synapses undergo long-term structural changes.

Based on the passage, match each theory of memory consolidation with the assertion that best characterizes its core premise.