Pronouns reactivate conceptual representations in human hippocampal neurons

D. E. Dijksterhuis, M. W. Self, J. K. Possel, J. C. Peters, E. C.W. van Straaten, S. Idema, J. C. Baaijen, S. M.A. van der Salm, E. J. Aarnoutse, N. C.E. van Klink, P. van Eijsden, S. Hanslmayr, R. Chelvarajah, F. Roux, L. D. Kolibius, V. Sawlani, D. T. Rollings, S. Dehaene, P. R. Roelfsema

Research output: Contribution to journalArticleAcademicpeer-review

Abstract

During discourse comprehension, every new word adds to an evolving representation of meaning that accumulates over consecutive sentences and constrains the next words. To minimize repetition and utterance length, languages use pronouns, like the word "she," to refer to nouns and phrases that were previously introduced. It has been suggested that language comprehension requires that pronouns activate the same neuronal representations as the nouns themselves. We recorded from individual neurons in the human hippocampus during a reading task. Cells that were selective to a particular noun were later reactivated by pronouns that refer to the cells' preferred noun. These results imply that concept cells contribute to a rapid and dynamic semantic memory network that is recruited during language comprehension.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)1478-1484
Number of pages7
JournalScience (New York, N.Y.)
Volume385
Issue number6716
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 27 Sept 2024

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