Dynamic neural representations of memory and space during human ambulatory navigation

• Published in: Nature communications Vol. 14; no. 1; p. 6643
• Main Authors: Maoz, Sabrina L. L., Stangl, Matthias, Topalovic, Uros, Batista, Daniel, Hiller, Sonja, Aghajan, Zahra M., Knowlton, Barbara, Stern, John, Langevin, Jean-Philippe, Fried, Itzhak, Eliashiv, Dawn, Suthana, Nanthia
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: London Nature Publishing Group UK 20.10.2023; Nature Publishing Group; Nature Portfolio
• Subjects: 59; 631/378/1595/1554; 631/378/1595/1637; 631/378/1595/3922; 9/26; Brain; Cognitive ability; Cognitive tasks; Computer applications; EEG; Electrocorticography; Hippocampus; Human performance; Humanities and Social Sciences; Humans; Immersive virtual reality; Memory; Memory tasks; Memory, Episodic; Mental Recall; Mental task performance; multidisciplinary; Navigation; Oscillations; Science; Science (multidisciplinary); Spatial analysis; Spatial data; Spatial Memory; Temporal Lobe
• ISSN: 2041-1723; 2041-1723
• DOI: 10.1038/s41467-023-42231-4

Our ability to recall memories of personal experiences is an essential part of daily life. These episodic memories often involve movement through space and thus require continuous encoding of one’s position relative to the surrounding environment. The medial temporal lobe (MTL) is thought to be critically involved, based on studies in freely moving rodents and stationary humans. However, it remains unclear if and how the MTL represents both space and memory especially during physical navigation, given challenges associated with deep brain recordings in humans during movement. We recorded intracranial electroencephalographic (iEEG) activity while participants completed an ambulatory spatial memory task within an immersive virtual reality environment. MTL theta activity was modulated by successful memory retrieval or spatial positions within the environment, depending on dynamically changing behavioral goals. Altogether, these results demonstrate how human MTL oscillations can represent both memory and space in a temporally flexible manner during freely moving navigation. Here the authors show in freely moving human participants that deep brain oscillations in the medial temporal lobe flexibly encode both memory and spatial information, depending on the current cognitive task demands.