Specific neurons that map memories now identified in the human brain

Neuroengineers have found the first evidence that individual neurons in the human brain target specific memories during recall. They studied recordings in neurosurgical patients who had electrodes implanted in their brains and examined how the patients’ brain signals corresponded to their behavior while performing a virtual-reality object-location memory task. The researchers identified ‘memory-trace cells’ whose activity was spatially tuned to the location where subjects remembered encountering specific objects.