Memory formation in the human medial temporal lobe
Award Number
BB/T001291/1Status / Stage
ActiveDates
1 July 2020 -30 June 2023
Duration (calculated)
02 years 11 monthsFunder(s)
BBSRC (UKRI)Funding Amount
£444,505.00Funder/Grant study page
BBSRC UKRIContracted Centre
University of LeicesterPrincipal Investigator
Professor Rodrigo Quian QuirogaWHO Catergories
Understanding Underlying DiseaseDisease Type
Dementia (Unspecified)CPEC Review Info
| Reference ID | 372 |
|---|---|
| Researcher | Reside Team |
| Published | 12/06/2023 |
Data
| Award Number | BB/T001291/1 |
|---|---|
| Status / Stage | Active |
| Start Date | 20200701 |
| End Date | 20230630 |
| Duration (calculated) | 02 years 11 months |
| Funder/Grant study page | BBSRC UKRI |
| Contracted Centre | University of Leicester |
| Funding Amount | £444,505.00 |
Abstract
For clinical reasons, patients with epilepsy may be implanted with intracranial electrodes, thus allowing recording from multiple single neurons in human subjects performing cognitive tasks. Electrodes are typically placed in the Medial Temporal Lobe (MTL), an area involved in declarative memory (memories of facts and events) where we have found “Concept Cells” (Nature 2005) – i.e. neurons selectively firing to specific concepts, such as a particular person or place. Declarative memory relies on establishing associations between concepts. For example, the memory of meeting a person at a particular place involves establishing an association between the neural representation of this person and the one of the place. Given the well-established role of the MTL in memory, we have argued that Concept Cells provide a representation of concepts and their associations for memory functions (Nat. Rev. Neurosci. 2012). In recent experiments, we have shown that Concept Cells encode meaningful associations between concepts (Nat. Comm. 2016; Nat. Comm. 2018) and that they can very rapidly change their tuning to encode new associations (Neuron 2015). However, these experiments were performed using concepts that were already very familiar to the subjects and it is still unknown how the representation of new concepts is formed and consolidated. This is exactly the issue we will address in this project, by using repeated presentations of initially unknown faces and by showing unknown movies. In particular, we will track on a trial-by-trial basis the mechanism by which the repeated presentation of new concepts gives rise to the very sparse coding we have already found for familiar concepts. In summary, this project will offer an unprecedented level of understanding of the neural mechanisms involved in memory formation and consolidation, exploiting the unique opportunity to record multiple single neurons in the human MTL, while the subjects perform memory tasks.
Aims
In fact, studying the nature of memories encoded by neurons in the hippocampus is one of the key aims (AIM3b) of our project.