Neuronal Sequences In Population Bursts Encode Information In Human Cortex Weizhen Xie John H Wittig Julio I Chapeton Mostafa Elkalliny Samantha N Jackson Sara K Inati Kareem A Zaghloul by Weizhen Xie & John H. Wittig & Julio I. Chapeton & Mostafa El-kalliny & Samantha N. Jackson & Sara K. Inati & Kareem A. Zaghloul 101038/S41586024080758 instant download after payment.

Weizhen Xie1,2,3 ✉, John H. Wittig Jr1,3, Julio I. Chapeton1, Mostafa El-Kalliny1, Received: 5 July 2023Samantha N. Jackson1, Sara K. Inati1 & Kareem A. Zaghloul1 ✉Accepted: 18 September 2024Published online: 16 October 2024Neural coding has traditionally been examined through changes in fring rates and latencies in response to diferent stimuli1–5. However, populations of neurons can also Check for updatesexhibit transient bursts of spiking activity, wherein neurons fre in a specifc temporal order or sequence6–8. The human brain may utilize these neuronal sequences within population bursts to efciently represent information9–12, thereby complementing the well-known neural code based on spike rate or latency. Here we examined this possibility by recording the spiking activity of populations of single units in the human anterior temporal lobe as eight participants performed a visual categorization task. We fnd that population spiking activity organizes into bursts during the task. The temporal order of spiking across the activated units within each burst varies across stimulus categories, creating unique stereotypical sequences for individual categories as well as for individual exemplars within a category. The information conveyed by the temporal order of spiking activity is separable from and complements the information conveyed by the units’ spike rates or latencies following stimulus onset. Collectively, our data provide evidence that the human brain contains a complementary code based on the neuronal sequence within bursts of population spiking to represent information.