小柯机器人

美国雪松西奈医疗中心Ueli Rutishauser和哈佛医学院Gabriel Kreiman研究组合作取得一项新成果。经过不懈努力，他们利用神经元检测认知边界重构了人类情景记忆。这一研究成果发表在2022年3月7日出版的国际学术期刊《自然-神经科学》上。

研究人员记录了人类内侧颞叶(MTL)中单个神经元在具有复杂叙述记忆形成和检索过程中的活动。研究人员发现神经元会对不同情节之间的抽象认知边界作出反应。编码期间边界诱导的神经状态变化预测了随后的识别准确性，但损害了事件顺序记忆，这反映了内容和时间记忆之间存在基本行为权衡。此外，在检索成功和错误记忆形成后，记忆边界后的神经状态都得以恢复。

这些发现揭示了一种用于检测认知边界的神经元基质，这些认知边界将经验转化为记忆片段，并在检索过程中重构心理时间轨迹。

据悉，虽然经验是连续的，但记忆却是由离散事件组织的。认知边界被认为是经验和结构记忆的分割线，但如何实现这一过程仍不清楚。

附：英文原文

Title: Neurons detect cognitive boundaries to structure episodic memories in humans

Author: Zheng, Jie, Schjetnan, Andrea G. P., Yebra, Mar, Gomes, Bernard A., Mosher, Clayton P., Kalia, Suneil K., Valiante, Taufik A., Mamelak, Adam N., Kreiman, Gabriel, Rutishauser, Ueli

Issue&Volume: 2022-03-07

Abstract: While experience is continuous, memories are organized as discrete events. Cognitive boundaries are thought to segment experience and structure memory, but how this process is implemented remains unclear. We recorded the activity of single neurons in the human medial temporal lobe (MTL) during the formation and retrieval of memories with complex narratives. Here, we show that neurons responded to abstract cognitive boundaries between different episodes. Boundary-induced neural state changes during encoding predicted subsequent recognition accuracy but impaired event order memory, mirroring a fundamental behavioral tradeoff between content and time memory. Furthermore, the neural state following boundaries was reinstated during both successful retrieval and false memories. These findings reveal a neuronal substrate for detecting cognitive boundaries that transform experience into memonic episodes and structure mental time travel during retrieval. 

DOI: 10.1038/s41593-022-01020-w

Source: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41593-022-01020-w

Nature Neuroscience：《自然—神经科学》，创刊于1998年。隶属于施普林格·自然出版集团，最新IF：28.771
官方网址：https://www.nature.com/neuro/
投稿链接：https://mts-nn.nature.com/cgi-bin/main.plex