Single-neuron representations of spatial targets in humans

Abstract

The hippocampus and surrounding medial-temporal-lobe (MTL) structures are critical for both memory and spatial navigation, but we do not fully understand the neuronal representations used to support these behaviors. Much research has examined how the MTL neurally represents spatial information, such as with \"place cells\" that represent the current location or \"head-direction cells\" that code for the current heading. In addition to behaviors that require an animal to attend to the current spatial location, navigating to remote destinations is a common part of daily life. To examine the neural basis of these behaviors we recorded single-neuron activity from neurosurgical patients playing Treasure Hunt, a virtual-reality spatial-memory task. By analyzing how the activity of these neurons related to behavior in Treasure Hunt, we found that the firing rates of many MTL neurons during navigation significantly changed depending on the position of the current spatial target. In addition, we observed neurons whose firing rates during navigation were tuned to specific heading directions in the environment, and others whose activity changed depending on the timing within the trial. By showing that neurons in our task represent remote locations rather than the subjects own position, our results suggest that the human MTL can represent remote spatial information according to task demands.