Uploaded October 2021 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago
Gabariel Kreiman (on behalf of Jie Zheng), Children's Hospital Boston, Harvard Medical School
Abstract: The process of constructing temporal associations among related events is essential to episodic memory. However, what neural mechanism helps accomplish this function remains unclear. To address this question, we recorded single unit activity in humans while subjects performed a temporal order memory task. During encoding, subjects watched a series of clips (i.e., each clip consisted of 4 events) and were later instructed to retrieve the ordinal information of event sequences. We found that hippocampal neurons in humans could index specific orders of events with increased neuronal firings (i.e., rate order cells) or clustered spike timing relative to theta phases (i.e., phase order cells), which are transferrable across different encoding experiences (e.g., different clips). Rate order cells also increased their firing rates when subjects correctly retrieved the temporal information of their preferred ordered events. Phase order cells demonstrated stronger phase precessions at event transitions during encoding for clips whose ordinal information was subsequently correct retrieved. These results not only highlight the critical role of the hippocampus in structuring memories of continuous event sequences but also suggest a potential neural code representing temporal associations among events.
Gabariel Kreiman (on behalf of Jie Zheng), Children's Hospital Boston, Harvard Medical School
Abstract: The process of constructing temporal associations among related events is essential to episodic memory. However, what neural mechanism helps accomplish this function remains unclear. To address this question, we recorded single unit activity in humans while subjects performed a temporal order memory task. During encoding, subjects watched a series of clips (i.e., each clip consisted of 4 events) and were later instructed to retrieve the ordinal information of event sequences. We found that hippocampal neurons in humans could index specific orders of events with increased neuronal firings (i.e., rate order cells) or clustered spike timing relative to theta phases (i.e., phase order cells), which are transferrable across different encoding experiences (e.g., different clips). Rate order cells also increased their firing rates when subjects correctly retrieved the temporal information of their preferred ordered events. Phase order cells demonstrated stronger phase precessions at event transitions during encoding for clips whose ordinal information was subsequently correct retrieved. These results not only highlight the critical role of the hippocampus in structuring memories of continuous event sequences but also suggest a potential neural code representing temporal associations among events.
