‘Time cells’ identified in our brains encode the flow of time, scientists say
How does the human brain keep track of the order of events in a sequence?
New research suggests that ‘time cells’ – neurons in the hippocampus thought to represent temporal information – could be the glue that sticks our memories together in the right sequence so that we can properly recall the correct order in which things happened.
Evidence for these kinds of sequence-tracking time cells was previously found in rats, where specific neuron assemblies are thought to support the recollection of events and the planning of action sequences – but less is known about how episodic memory is encoded in the human brain.
To investigate, a team led by neuroscientist Leila Reddy from the Brain and Cognition Research Center (CerCo) in France monitored electrical activity in the brains of 15 epilepsy patients, using microelectrodes implanted in the hippocampus.
“Creating episodic memories requires linking together distinct events of an experience with temporal fidelity,” the researchers explain in their study. [Continue reading…]