Long-term coding of personal and universal associations underlying the memory web in the human brain
Neurons in the medial temporal lobe (MTL), a critical area for declarative memory, have been shown to change their tuning in associative learning tasks. Yet, it is unclear how durable these neuronal representations are and if they outlast the execution of the task. To address this issue, we studied...
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| Format: | Article |
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Nature Publishing Group
2016
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| Online Access: | https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/44487/ |
| _version_ | 1848796926940545024 |
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| author | De Falco, Emanuela Ison, Matias J. Fried, Itzhak Quian Quiroga, Rodrigo |
| author_facet | De Falco, Emanuela Ison, Matias J. Fried, Itzhak Quian Quiroga, Rodrigo |
| author_sort | De Falco, Emanuela |
| building | Nottingham Research Data Repository |
| collection | Online Access |
| description | Neurons in the medial temporal lobe (MTL), a critical area for declarative memory, have been shown to change their tuning in associative learning tasks. Yet, it is unclear how durable these neuronal representations are and if they outlast the execution of the task. To address this issue, we studied the responses of MTL neurons in neurosurgical patients to known concepts (people and places). Using association scores provided by the patients and a web-based metric, here we show that whenever MTL neurons respond to more than one concept, these concepts are typically related. Furthermore, the degree of association between concepts could be successfully predicted based on the neurons’ response patterns. These results provide evidence for a long-term involvement of MTL neurons in the representation of durable associations, a hallmark of human declarative memory. |
| first_indexed | 2025-11-14T19:55:45Z |
| format | Article |
| id | nottingham-44487 |
| institution | University of Nottingham Malaysia Campus |
| institution_category | Local University |
| last_indexed | 2025-11-14T19:55:45Z |
| publishDate | 2016 |
| publisher | Nature Publishing Group |
| recordtype | eprints |
| repository_type | Digital Repository |
| spelling | nottingham-444872020-05-04T18:20:59Z https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/44487/ Long-term coding of personal and universal associations underlying the memory web in the human brain De Falco, Emanuela Ison, Matias J. Fried, Itzhak Quian Quiroga, Rodrigo Neurons in the medial temporal lobe (MTL), a critical area for declarative memory, have been shown to change their tuning in associative learning tasks. Yet, it is unclear how durable these neuronal representations are and if they outlast the execution of the task. To address this issue, we studied the responses of MTL neurons in neurosurgical patients to known concepts (people and places). Using association scores provided by the patients and a web-based metric, here we show that whenever MTL neurons respond to more than one concept, these concepts are typically related. Furthermore, the degree of association between concepts could be successfully predicted based on the neurons’ response patterns. These results provide evidence for a long-term involvement of MTL neurons in the representation of durable associations, a hallmark of human declarative memory. Nature Publishing Group 2016-11-15 Article PeerReviewed De Falco, Emanuela, Ison, Matias J., Fried, Itzhak and Quian Quiroga, Rodrigo (2016) Long-term coding of personal and universal associations underlying the memory web in the human brain. Nature Communications, 7 . 13408/1-13408/11. ISSN 2041-1723 https://doi.org/10.1038/ncomms13408 doi:10.1038/ncomms13408 doi:10.1038/ncomms13408 |
| spellingShingle | De Falco, Emanuela Ison, Matias J. Fried, Itzhak Quian Quiroga, Rodrigo Long-term coding of personal and universal associations underlying the memory web in the human brain |
| title | Long-term coding of personal and universal associations underlying the memory web in the human brain |
| title_full | Long-term coding of personal and universal associations underlying the memory web in the human brain |
| title_fullStr | Long-term coding of personal and universal associations underlying the memory web in the human brain |
| title_full_unstemmed | Long-term coding of personal and universal associations underlying the memory web in the human brain |
| title_short | Long-term coding of personal and universal associations underlying the memory web in the human brain |
| title_sort | long-term coding of personal and universal associations underlying the memory web in the human brain |
| url | https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/44487/ https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/44487/ https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/44487/ |