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Concept cells: the building blocks of declarative memory functions
Abstract
Intracranial recordings in subjects suffering from intractable epilepsy - made during their evaluation for an eventual surgical removal of the epileptic focus - have allowed the extraordinary opportunity to study the firing of multiple single neurons in awake and behaving human subjects. These studies have shown that neurons in the human medial temporal lobe respond in a remarkably selective and abstract manner to particular persons or objects, such as Jennifer Aniston, Luke Skywalker or the Tower of Pisa. These neurons have been named 'Jennifer Aniston neurons' or, more recently, 'concept cells'. I argue that the sparse, explicit and abstract representation of these neurons is crucial for memory functions, such as the creation of associations and the transition between related concepts that leads to episodic memories and the flow of consciousness.
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“We propose that neonatal bulbar neurogenesis may represent an early developmental mechanism contributing to the formation of such representations.”
From Positive early-life olfactory memory is rooted in the olfactory bulb and triggers large-scale changes beyond the olfactory system (2026) · cites this paper as [66]
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“Human 'concept cells' seem to encode a stable representation of a specific person or landmark, regardless of size or viewing angle 104,105 , providing sparse codes [G] for visually invariant abstractions related to personal events 106 .”
From From cognitive maps to spatial schemas (2023) · cites this paper as [106]
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Rolls, E. T. (2017) · Springer eBooks · doi:10.1007/978-3-319-47829-6_1566-1
““Concept Cells” Recorded in Humans: Correspondence with Object-Place Memory-Related Neurons in Macaques Some neurons in the human medial temporal lobe, in structures that include parahippocampal regions, respond to the faces of particular individuals, such as Jennifer Aniston (Quiroga 2012).”
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Thagard, P. R. (2019) · Oxford University Press eBooks · doi:10.1093/oso/9780190678715.003.0006
Kemmerer, D. L. (2019) · Oxford University Press eBooks · doi:10.1093/oso/9780190682620.003.0005
Thagard, P. R. (2019) · Oxford University Press eBooks · doi:10.1093/oso/9780190678715.003.0012
Thagard, P. R. (2019) · Oxford University Press eBooks · doi:10.1093/oso/9780190678715.003.0007
Kemmerer, D. L. (2019) · Oxford University Press eBooks · doi:10.1093/oso/9780190682620.003.0008
Thagard, P. R. (2019) · Oxford University Press eBooks · doi:10.1093/oso/9780190678715.003.0008
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Haga, T., Oseki, Y., & Fukai, T. (2023) · bioRxiv (Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory) · doi:10.1101/2023.05.11.540307
“Concept cells exhibit concept-specific activities, but they can simultaneously work as building blocks to represent specific items as assemblies (25, 26).”
BackgroundInfluentialRitter, F. E. (2019) · Oxford University Press eBooks · doi:10.1093/oso/9780190678715.002.0008
Thagard, P. R. (2019) · Oxford University Press eBooks · doi:10.1093/oso/9780190678715.002.0005
Thagard, P. R. (2019) · Oxford University Press eBooks · doi:10.1093/oso/9780190678715.002.0007
Thagard, P. R. (2019) · Oxford University Press eBooks · doi:10.1093/oso/9780190678715.002.0004
Kemmerer, D. L. (2019) · Oxford University Press eBooks · doi:10.1093/oso/9780190682620.002.0003
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Thagard, P. R. (2019) · Oxford University Press eBooks · doi:10.1093/oso/9780190678715.002.0080
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“108,117 Moreover, while humans have concept cells that respond to concepts at the single-cell level, 118 such neurons have not been found in other species.”
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“…cognitive tasks, leading to important advancements in the understanding of neuropsychological functions, such as speech encoding [27], memory encoding and retrieval [28–30], long-term and working memory [31–33], emotional processing [34,35], auditory processing [36], and face recognition [37,38].”
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Ma, Y., & Kragel, P. A. (2025) · bioRxiv (Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory) · doi:10.1101/2025.06.03.657722
“Our findings extend our understanding of hippocampal concept cells, which have primarily been linked to physical entities (e.g., persons, objects) in single-unit recording studies 41,77 .”
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Armendáriz, M., Blumberg, J., Singer, J. M., Aiple, F., Kim, J., Domıńguez-Iturza, N., Brandt, A., Reinacher, P. C., Schulze‐Bonhage, A., & Kreiman, G. (2026) · Nature Neuroscience · doi:10.1101/2025.08.04.668333
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“This is because each concept cell can respond to many of the different semantic attributes of a person, object, country, and so forth (Quian Quiroga et al. 2005; Quian Quiroga 2012, 2026; Rutishauser et al. 2021).”
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Stimulus-specific recruitment of human amygdala neurons predicts episodic memory encoding success
Xiao, J., Daume, J., Salimpour, Y., Kurilenko, N., Mosher, C., Anderson, W. S., Valiante, T. A., Mamelak, A. N., & Rutishauser, U. (2026) · Nature Neuroscience · doi:10.1038/s41593-026-02493-9
Principles of Neural Information Processing
von Seelen, W., & Behrend, K. (2015) · Cognitive systems monographs · doi:10.1007/978-3-319-20113-9_1
Metadata
- Authors
- Quiroga, R. Q.
- Affiliations
- University of Leicester (GB)
- Corresponding author
- Quiroga, Rodrigo Quian
- Venue
- Nature reviews. Neuroscience
- Published
- 2012-07-04
- Volume
- 13
- Issue
- 8
- Pages
- 587-597
- ISSN
- 1471-003X (ISSN-L)
- 1471-0048
- OpenAlex
- W2040309074
- Cited by
- 472
- References
- 124
- Citations by year
- 2026: 39 · 2025: 50 · 2024: 26 · 2023: 36 · 2022: 27 · 2021: 38 · 2020: 39 · 2019: 59 · 2018: 22 · 2017: 30 · 2016: 23 · 2015: 33 · 2014: 30 · 2013: 16 · 2012: 4
- FWCI
- 2.10
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Licence
- www.springer.com/tdm (tdm)
- Locations
- Nature reviews. Neuroscience (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Leicester Research Archive (University of Leicester) (submittedVersion)
- Topics
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Memory and Neural Mechanisms
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Memory Processes and Influences
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Neural dynamics and brain function
- Keywords
- medial temporal lobe, declarative memory, episodic memory, single-unit recording, drug-resistant epilepsy, object recognition, person recognition, memory associations, stream of consciousness
- MeSH terms
- Animals, Concept Formation, Humans, Memory, Nerve Net, Neural Pathways, Temporal Lobe, Synaptic Potentials
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