以色列魏茨曼科学研究所Nachum Ulanovsky等研究人员合作揭示海马中自我和他人的背景和纯时间编码。2022年12月30日，《自然—神经科学》杂志在线发表了这项成果。

Title: Contextual and pure time coding for self and other in the hippocampus

Author: Omer, David B., Las, Liora, Ulanovsky, Nachum

Issue&Volume: 2022-12-30

Abstract: Navigation and episodic memory depend critically on representing temporal sequences. Hippocampal ‘time cells’ form temporal sequences, but it is unknown whether they represent context-dependent experience or time per se. Here we report on time cells in bat hippocampal area CA1, which, surprisingly, formed two distinct populations. One population of time cells generated different temporal sequences when the bat hung at different locations, thus conjunctively encoding spatial context and time—‘contextual time cells’. A second population exhibited similar preferred times across different spatial contexts, thus purely encoding elapsed time. When examining neural responses after the landing moment of another bat, in a social imitation task, we found time cells that encoded temporal sequences aligned to the other’s landing. We propose that these diverse time codes may support the perception of interval timing, episodic memory and temporal coordination between self and others.

DOI: 10.1038/s41593-022-01226-y

Source: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41593-022-01226-y