Rolls E T, Miyashita Y, Cahusac P M, Kesner R P, Niki H, Feigenbaum J D, Bach L
Department of Experimental Psychology, University of Oxford, England.
J Neurosci. 1989 Jun;9(6):1835-45. doi: 10.1523/JNEUROSCI.09-06-01835.1989.
In order to analyze the functions of the hippocampus in the primate, and to advance the understanding of amnesia, the activity of 994 single hippocampal neurons in the monkey was analyzed during the performance of a task known to be affected by hippocampal damage in which both an object, and its position in space, must be remembered. The serial multiple object-place memory task required a memory for the position on a video monitor in which a given object had appeared previously. It was found that 9.3% of neurons recorded in the hippocampus and hippocampal gyrus had spatial fields in this and related tasks, in that they responded whenever there was a stimulus in some but not in other positions on the screen. We found that 2.4% of the neurons responded to a combination of spatial information and information about the object seen, in that they responded more the first time a particular object was seen in any position. Six of these neurons were found that showed this combination even more clearly, in that, for example, they responded only to some positions and only if it was the first time that a particular stimulus had appeared there. It is concluded that there are neurons in the primate hippocampus which (1) respond to position in space and (2) in some cases combine information about stimuli and their position in space, responding to a stimulus only the first time it is seen in a position in space, for example. Thus, not only is spatial information processed by the primate hippocampus, but it can be combined with information about which stimuli have been seen before. The ability of the hippocampus to form such conjunctions may be an important property for its role in memory.
为了分析灵长类动物海马体的功能，并加深对失忆症的理解，研究人员在一项已知受海马体损伤影响的任务执行过程中，对猴子大脑中994个单海马神经元的活动进行了分析。在该任务中，猴子必须记住一个物体及其在空间中的位置。连续多物体-位置记忆任务要求猴子记住视频监视器上先前出现给定物体的位置。研究发现，在海马体和海马回中记录的神经元里，有9.3%在这个任务及相关任务中具有空间场，即只要屏幕上某些而非其他位置出现刺激，它们就会做出反应。我们还发现，有2.4%的神经元对空间信息和所看到物体的信息组合做出反应，例如，当某个特定物体首次在任何位置被看到时，它们的反应更为强烈。其中有六个神经元表现出这种组合更为明显，比如，它们仅对某些位置做出反应，并且只有当特定刺激首次在该位置出现时才会做出反应。研究得出结论，灵长类动物海马体中存在这样的神经元：（1）对空间位置做出反应；（2）在某些情况下，将有关刺激及其在空间中位置的信息结合起来，例如仅在某个刺激首次在空间中的某个位置被看到时做出反应。因此，灵长类动物海马体不仅处理空间信息，还能将其与之前所看到刺激的信息结合起来。海马体形成这种联合的能力可能是其在记忆中发挥作用的一个重要特性。
