ArticleNature neuroscience2025
Phase of firing does not reflect temporal order in sequence memory of humans and recurrent neural networks.
Article in Nature neuroscience, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 10 papers.
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Who cites it
10 citing papers in PubMed.
- Neural timescales from a computational perspective.Nature neuroscience · 2026Review
- Human neuronal firing varies with the frequency of local field potential oscillations.PLoS biology · 2026Article
- Unattended working memory items are coded by persistent activity in human medial temporal lobe neurons.Nature human behaviour · 2025Article
- Human neuronal firing is modulated by the frequency of local field potential oscillations.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2025Article
- Theta-phase locking of single neurons during human spatial memory.Nature communications · 2025Article
- Theta phase precession supports memory formation and retrieval of naturalistic experience in humans.Nature human behaviour · 2024Article
- A preserved neural code for temporal order between memory formation and recall in the human medial temporal lobe.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2024Article
- Oscillations in an artificial neural network convert competing inputs into a temporal code.PLoS computational biology · 2024Article
- Trained recurrent neural networks develop phase-locked limit cycles in a working memory task.PLoS computational biology · 2024Article
- Training biologically plausible recurrent neural networks on cognitive tasks with long-term dependencies.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2023Article
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Authors and funding
9 authors.
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Abstract
The temporal order of a sequence of events has been thought to be reflected in the ordered firing of neurons at different phases of theta oscillations. Here we assess this by measuring single neuron activity (1,420 neurons) and local field potentials (921 channels) in the medial temporal lobe of 16 patients with epilepsy performing a working-memory task for temporal order. During memory maintenance, we observe theta oscillations, preferential firing of single neurons to theta phase and a close relationship between phase of firing and item position. However, the firing order did not match item order. Training recurrent neural networks to perform an analogous task, we also show the generation of theta oscillations, theta phase-dependent firing related to item position and, again, no match between firing and item order. Rather, our results suggest a mechanistic link between phase order, stimulus timing and oscillation frequency. In both biological and artificial neural networks, we provide evidence supporting the role of phase of firing in working-memory processing.
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Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.