Mapping sequence structure in the human lateral entorhinal cortex

2019/08/05 by Jacob L. S. Bellmund, Lorena Deuker, Christian F. Doeller · 1 voice · 1 citation
Neuroscience · #Memory and Neural Mechanisms #Neuroscience and Neuropharmacology Research #Memory Processes and Influences

paper · doi:10.7554/elife.45333

openalex publication_date 2019/08/05 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/01

Abstract

Remembering event sequences is central to episodic memory and presumably supported by the hippocampal-entorhinal region. We previously demonstrated that the hippocampus maps spatial and temporal distances between events encountered along a route through a virtual city (Deuker et al., 2016), but the content of entorhinal mnemonic representations remains unclear. Here, we demonstrate that multi-voxel representations in the anterior-lateral entorhinal cortex (alEC) - the human homologue of the rodent lateral entorhinal cortex - specifically reflect the temporal event structure after learning. Holistic representations of the sequence structure related to memory recall and the timeline of events could be reconstructed from entorhinal multi-voxel patterns. Our findings demonstrate representations of temporal structure in the alEC; dovetailing with temporal information carried by population signals in the lateral entorhinal cortex of navigating rodents and alEC activations during temporal memory retrieval. Our results provide novel evidence for the role of the alEC in representing time for episodic memory.

Citations

• A navigational guidance system in the human brain
• A Distributed Representation of Temporal Context
• The hippocampus as a spatial map. Preliminary evidence from unit activity in the freely-moving rat
• Statistical learning of temporal community structure in the hippocampus
• A map of abstract relational knowledge in the human hippocampal–entorhinal cortex

Cited by

• Pattern integration and differentiation: Dual process model of episodic memory

Discussions

• Mapping sequence structure in the human lateral entorhinal cortex. My new paper with @lorenadeuker & @doellerlab is now out in @elife. https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.45333 How do we remember what happ [bsky, 0 points, 0 comments]

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