Responses of Human Medial Temporal Lobe Neurons Are Modulated by Stimulus Repetition

Pedreira C, Mormann F, Kraskov A, Cerf M, Fried I, Koch C, Quiroga RQ. Responses of human medial temporal lobe neurons are modulated by stimulus repetition. J Neurophysiol 103: 97-107, 2010. First published October 28, 2009; doi:10.1152/jn.91323.2008. Recent studies have reported the presence of single neurons with strong responses to visual inputs in the human medial temporal lobe. Here we show how repeated stimulus presentation-photos of celebrities and familiar individuals, landmark buildings, animals, and objects-modulates the firing rate of these cells: a consistent decrease in the neural activity was registered as images were repeatedly shown during experimental sessions. The effect of repeated stimulus presentation was not the same for all medial temporal lobe areas. These findings are consistent with the view that medial temporal lobe neurons link visual percepts to declarative memory.