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20 years of concept cells: From invariant responses to a unique coding of human memory
1Hospital del Mar Research Institute Barcelona (HMRIB), Barcelona, Spain; Institució Catalana de Recerca i Estudis Avançats (ICREA), Barcelona, Spain; Ruijin Hospital, Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine, Shanghai, China.
Abstract:
I discuss human single-neuron recordings and the discovery of concept cells-i.e., neurons representing specific concepts in the hippocampus and surrounding cortex-about 20 years ago. I then present the main properties of concept cells and show how these neurons are involved in forming and storing memories in coordination with complementary neocortical representations. Finally, I compare the response properties of concept cells with those reported in the hippocampus of other species and argue that the abstract representation by concept cells is exclusively human and might be a cornerstone of human cognitive abilities, such as our power for high-level abstract thinking and generalization.
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