 |
| Research article summary (published 30 May 2002): |
|
Free Full Text! See links below |
Inhibitory and excitatory responses of single neurons in the human medial temporal lobe during recognition of faces and objects.
Full Abstract
The medial temporal lobe (MTL) plays a critical role in transforming complex stimuli into permanent memory traces, yet little is known on how the activity of neurons in the human brain mediates this process. Recording from single neurons in the human MTL during visual encoding and retrieval of faces and objects, we found that in the hippocampus faces evoked predominantly suppression of neuronal firing below prestimulus baseline ('inhibitory responses'). These responses were also prevalent in the entorhinal cortex but were absent in the amygdala during the first second of stimulus encoding when all responses to faces were 'excitatory' (neuronal firing increased above the prestimulus baseline). Inhibitory responses were more prevalent during recognition than encoding and were also present during processing of objects, albeit less frequently than during processing of faces. Despite the prevalence in the hippocampus of cells with inhibitory responses and their relative specificity to faces, it was mainly the activity of the cells with excitatory responses that was selective for stimulus features such as gender and emotional expression of faces. These findings suggest that a large population of cells with inhibitory responses is engaged in the hippocampal memory network, but primarily cells with excitatory responses process feature-specific information.
Learn Faster Today Improve your study skills
Author information
Author/s: Fried, Itzhak (I); Cameron, Katherine A (KA); Yashar, Sharona (S); Fong, Raymond (R); Morrow, Jack W (JW);
Affiliation: Division of Neurosurgery, UCLA School of Medicine, 90095-7039, USA. ifried(-atsign-)mednet.ucla.edu
Grants: NS02808 (Agency:United States NINDS) ; NS33221 (Agency:United States NINDS)
Journal and publication information
Publication Type: Journal Article; Research Support, U.S. Gov't, P.H.S.
Journal: Cerebral cortex (New York, N.Y. : 1991) (Cereb Cortex), published in United States. (Language: eng)
Reference: 2002-Jun; vol 12 (issue 6) : pp 575-84
Dates: Created 2002/05/10; Completed 2002/07/03; Revised 2007/11/14;
PMID: 12003857, status: MEDLINE (last retrieval date: 11/6/2008)
Sourced from the National Library of Medicine. Abstract text and other information may be subject to copyright.
External Links for this article (including full text providers, if available):
Click Electronic Full-text Provider Links to see options for finding the electronic full text links to this article. Note there may be a subscription or fee required for access to the full text. See our FAQ for information on finding FREE full text articles.
This article may also be located in paper journal collections available in many libraries. Use the Journal and Publication Information above to find the full article.
MeSH headings (categories)
This article was linked to the MESH Headings shown below.
|
|
Related articles
This article has not been indexed for related articles as yet, however you can still use the live related article search links below.
See a large map of 100+ related articles.