A UCLA study uncovers new insights into how neurons play a role in memory systems.

A new study conducted by researchers at UCLA sheds light on how the brain interprets sequences of experiences, potentially paving the way for advancements in the treatment of specific memory disorders.

A study released in September investigates the brain's method of encoding intricate sequences of events. According to Pawel Tacikowski, the lead author and a former project scientist at UCLA, researchers found remarkable parallels between the brain's representation of spatial environments and the temporal patterns of these events.

Tacikowski and his fellow researchers focused on the hippocampus – a brain structure through which all external information has to go to be stored as memory – in the study.

The research focused on individual neurons, which are the cells in the nervous system responsible for transmitting electrical signals, according to Tacikowski. He explained that the team was able to conduct this analysis because the participants in the study were epilepsy patients who had already undergone the implantation of electrodes in their brains for medical purposes.

According to psychology professor Barbara Knowlton, this technique enabled researchers to observe individual neurons as they engaged in the learning process.

These neurons, referred to as concept cells, were previously discovered by the Fried laboratory to activate in response to an image or idea of an individual, according to Knowlton.

The study participants were then presented with a particular series of images, according to Guldamla Kalender, one of the co-authors of the research.

The sequence in which images were shown to the participants of the study was not arbitrary. According to Tacikowski, it was based on a particular graph, and the researchers discovered that they could recreate the relationships depicted in this graph by analyzing the firing patterns of the associated neurons.

Ueli Rutishauser, a professor specializing in neurosurgery, neurology, and biomedical sciences at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, stated that although the participants were unaware of any patterns in the sequence of images presented to them, their brains had already en