Epileptic patient candidate to resective neurosurgery: a key in the understanding of declarative memory.

NASIMBERA, A. H; NISHIDA, FABIAN; RODRIGO QUIAN QUIROGA; SILVIA KOCHEN

Villa Carlos Paz

Congreso; XXXIV Reunion de la Socieda Argentina de Investigacion en Neurociencias; 2019

Socieda Argentina de Investigacion en Neurociencias

It is well known that the medial temporal lobe has a crucial role in the creation, consolidation and recall of declarative memory. The formation of a new concept is strongly associated to the meaning we give to the sensory information we perceive, and it involves a process of ignoring details to focus on relevant features. Many evidences from animal models or patients with lesions in the hippocampus or the amygdala have demonstrated the crucial role of these structures in these processes. Although, it is known that neurons in this location are involved in the processes of creating and storing different concepts, little is known about how the perception of external stimuli leads to the creation of a concept [1,2].Intracranial EEG recordings are sometimes needed in patients with pharmacoresistant epilepsy, who candidates to surgery to define the epileptogenic zone. These cases give us the unique opportunity of recording the activity of multiple single neurons (SN) in conscious human subjects while performing a specific task. In this sense, patients are submitted to a serial screening session in whose they are exposed to a specific set of stimuli, optimized for each patient according to their background and preferences. Thus, analyzing the electrical signal we can indentify which pictures elicit responses in any of the recorded neurons.