小柯机器人

德国波恩大学Lukas Kunz等研究人员揭示刺激特异性神经元的涟漪锁定协同作用与人类联想记忆。相关论文于2024年2月16日在线发表在《自然—神经科学》杂志上。

为了更好地了解其神经基础，研究揭示了联想记忆是否涉及表现出刺激特异性调谐的内侧颞叶（MTL）神经元的时间相关性脉冲。通过对癫痫患者进行物体-地点联想记忆任务的单神经元记录，研究人员确定了代表每种记忆的不同元素的物体特异性神经元和地点特异性神经元。当患者编码和检索特定记忆时，相关的对象特异性神经元和地点特异性神经元会在海马涟漪期间一起激活。

随着患者联想学习的进展，刺激特异性神经元的这种涟漪锁定共同活动会逐渐出现。在编码和检索之间，涟漪锁定的共同作用时间发生了变化，这表明MTL神经元和海马涟漪之间的相互作用可根据行为需求灵活调整。这些研究结果与联想记忆的细胞解释一致，即海马涟漪协调专门细胞群的活动，以促进刺激之间的联系。

据了解，联想记忆能对不同刺激之间的关系进行编码和检索。

附：英文原文

Title: Ripple-locked coactivity of stimulus-specific neurons and human associative memory

Author: Kunz, Lukas, Staresina, Bernhard P., Reinacher, Peter C., Brandt, Armin, Guth, Tim A., Schulze-Bonhage, Andreas, Jacobs, Joshua

Issue&Volume: 2024-02-16

Abstract: Associative memory enables the encoding and retrieval of relations between different stimuli. To better understand its neural basis, we investigated whether associative memory involves temporally correlated spiking of medial temporal lobe (MTL) neurons that exhibit stimulus-specific tuning. Using single-neuron recordings from patients with epilepsy performing an associative object–location memory task, we identified the object-specific and place-specific neurons that represented the separate elements of each memory. When patients encoded and retrieved particular memories, the relevant object-specific and place-specific neurons activated together during hippocampal ripples. This ripple-locked coactivity of stimulus-specific neurons emerged over time as the patients’ associative learning progressed. Between encoding and retrieval, the ripple-locked timing of coactivity shifted, suggesting flexibility in the interaction between MTL neurons and hippocampal ripples according to behavioral demands. Our results are consistent with a cellular account of associative memory, in which hippocampal ripples coordinate the activity of specialized cellular populations to facilitate links between stimuli.

DOI: 10.1038/s41593-023-01550-x

Source: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41593-023-01550-x

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