Decoding neuronal ensembles in the human hippocampus.

ABSTRACT:

Background

The hippocampus underpins our ability to navigate, to form and recollect memories, and to imagine future experiences. How activity across millions of hippocampal neurons supports these functions is a fundamental question in neuroscience, wherein the size, sparseness, and organization of the hippocampal neural code are debated.

Results

Here, by using multivariate pattern classification and high spatial resolution functional MRI, we decoded activity across the population of neurons in the human medial temporal lobe while participants navigated in a virtual reality environment. Remarkably, we could accurately predict the position of an individual within this environment solely from the pattern of activity in his hippocampus even when visual input and task were held c

SUBMITTER: Hassabis D 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC2670980 | biostudies-literature | 2009 Apr

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature