A team of neuroscientists, neurosurgeons, and neurologists conducted a study on patients with epilepsy who had depth electrodes implanted in their hippocampus. This brain area is involved in learning and memory, and the researchers wanted to investigate how individual brain cells in the hippocampus respond to pronouns. They found that there are cells, known as “concept cells,” that respond to specific people, such as a “Shrek concept cell” that reacts to the character Shrek. These cells also respond to pronouns like “he” or “she” and are able to link the pronoun to the correct person in a sentence.
In the study, the patients were shown sentences with pronouns and were asked to determine who performed the action described in the sentence. The researchers discovered that they could predict the patients’ responses based on the activity of individual concept cells in the hippocampus. The patients tended to choose the person that evoked the most activity in the hippocampus at the start of the sentence. This suggests that the hippocampus plays a role in linking pronouns to their referents in a dynamic and flexible way.
The researchers also explored the interaction between memory and language in the hippocampus. They found that pronouns help us understand who did what in a story, and cells in the hippocampus encode these actions into our memory. The ultimate goal of the study is to understand how an entire memory is formed and represented in the brain. The researchers emphasized the value of studying single brain cells in patients who are reading, as it is rare to have this opportunity and impossible to study these processes in animals.
Overall, the study provides insight into how the brain processes pronouns and links them to their referents. By studying individual brain cells in the hippocampus, the researchers were able to show that concept cells track who pronouns refer to in a sentence. This research contributes to our understanding of the dynamic and flexible nature of language processing in the brain, as well as the role of the hippocampus in memory and language interaction. The study highlights the importance of studying brain activity in real-life situations and the potential for future research in this area.