波恩大学Florian Mormann小组近日取得一项新成果。经过不懈努力，他们的研究显示，人类大脑中不同的神经元群将内容和环境结合起来。相关论文于2026年1月7日发表在《自然》杂志上。

在这里，研究团队展示了不同神经元群的协调活动支持情境中的项目记忆。在情境依赖的图片比较任务中，小组记录了来自16名神经外科患者的3109个神经元，确定了597个刺激调节神经元（预筛选）和200个情境调节神经元（杏仁核2.95%，海马旁皮层7.68%，内嗅皮层5.68%和海马9.42%）。他们通过神经元对问题情境的恢复，将不同的比较问题（情境）与随后的两幅图片（刺激）结合起来。这两个群体在很大程度上是分开的，在彼此偏好的维度上被一般化，并与行为表现共变。在实验中将刺激与情境配对后，内嗅刺激神经元的放电可以在几十毫秒后预测海马情境神经元的放电。

总的来说，突触修饰和刺激神经元和情境神经元的共同激活可以促进情境中的项目记忆，指定哪些刺激记忆需要被检索，甚至通过相互恢复大部分独立的、正交的表征来概括记忆。相比之下，只有50个刺激-情境神经元代表特定的图片-问题组合，这与人类内侧颞叶有限的模式分离一致，有利于它们灵活的泛化而不是僵化的连接编码。

据悉，内侧颞叶，特别是海马体，已经被提出对上下文中的项目进行编码。尽管啮齿类动物的海马记忆表征在很大程度上依赖于上下文，但人类的概念细胞似乎是上下文不变的。然而，在人类的单神经元水平上，项目和环境信息是如何结合起来形成或检索完整的项目在环境中的记忆的，这仍然是未知的。

附：英文原文

Title: Distinct neuronal populations in the human brain combine content and context

Author: Bausch, Marcel, Niediek, Johannes, Reber, Thomas P., Mackay, Sina, Bostrm, Jan, Elger, Christian E., Mormann, Florian

Issue&Volume: 2026-01-07

Abstract: The medial temporal lobe, and particularly the hippocampus, has been proposed to encode items in context1,2. Although hippocampal memory representations are largely context-dependent in rodents3,4, concept cells in humans appear to be context-invariant5. However, it remains unknown how item and context information are combined to form or retrieve integrated item-in-context memories at the single-neuron level in humans. Here we show that coordinated activity of distinct neuronal populations supports item-in-context memory. In a context-dependent picture-comparison task, we recorded 3,109 neurons from 16 neurosurgical patients, identifying 597 stimulus-modulated (pre-screened) and 200 context-modulated neurons (2.95% in the amygdala, 7.68% in the parahippocampal cortex, 5.68% in the entorhinal cortex and 9.42% in the hippocampus). Their co-firing combined different comparison questions (contexts) with two subsequent pictures (stimuli) through neuronal reinstatement of question contexts. Both populations were largely separate, generalized across the preferred dimension of each other, and covaried with behavioural performance. Following experimental pairing of stimuli and context, firing of entorhinal stimulus neurons predicted that of hippocampal context neurons after tens of milliseconds. Overall, synaptic modifications and co-firing of stimulus and context neurons could contribute to item-in-context memory, specify which stimulus memories need to be retrieved, and even generalize memories through mutual reinstatement of largely separate, orthogonal representations. By contrast, only 50 stimulus–context neurons represented specific picture–question combinations, consistent with limited pattern separation in the human medial temporal lobe, favouring flexible generalization over rigid conjunctive coding.

DOI: 10.1038/s41586-025-09910-2

Source: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-025-09910-2