PRESS-NEWS.org - Press Release Distribution
PRESS RELEASES DISTRIBUTION

How are pronouns processed in the memory-region of our brain?

How are pronouns processed in the memory-region of our brain?
2024-09-27
(Press-News.org) A new study shows how individual brain cells in the hippocampus respond to pronouns. “This may help us unravel how we remember what we read.”

Read the following sentence: “Donald Trump and Kamala Harris walked into the bar, she sat down at a table.” We all immediately know that it was Kamala who sat at the table, not Donald. Pronouns like “she” help us to understand language, but pronouns can have multiple meanings. Depending on the context, we understand who the pronoun is referring to. But how is it that we are so good at this, and how does our brain link pronouns with their nouns?

To answer this question, an international team of neuroscientists, neurosurgeons, and neurologists joined forces. Doris Dijksterhuis and Matthew Self from Pieter Roelfsema’s group looked together with their colleagues at the brain activity of patients with epilepsy. As part of their treatment, these patients were implanted with depth electrodes in their hippocampus, a brain area involved in learning and memory. The research team took advantage of this and conducted additional tests with them.

“We can measure the activity of individual brain cells in the hippocampus while the patient performs a task,” says Matthew Self. In the hippocampus, there are cells that respond to a specific person, so-called “concept cells.” A well-known example is the “Jennifer Aniston cell,” which becomes active when you see a photo of Jennifer Aniston, hear her name or read the words “Jennifer Aniston”. We wondered if these cells also become active when you only read a pronoun, like ‘he’ or ‘she’. Are these cells able to link the pronoun to the right person?

Shrek cell

Doris Dijksterhuis: “To test this, we first showed the patients many photos until we found a cell that responded to one particular image. For example, we found a cell that responded to an image of ‘Shrek’ but not to other images. We call this cell a ‘Shrek concept cell’. When patients later read a sentence like: “Shrek and Fiona were having dinner. He poured out some wine.” the ‘Shrek’ cell indeed responded to the word “Shrek”, but also to the pronoun ‘He.’ This is interesting because such a pronoun can mean something entirely different in another sentence. For example, in the sentence ‘Donald Trump and Kamala Harris were having dinner. He poured out some wine,’ the same pronoun, ‘He’, refers to Donald Trump, and therefore the Shrek cell will not react. Individual hippocampal cells track who the pronoun refers to in a dynamic, flexible way.”

Self: “We had the participants answer a question at the end of the sentences about who performed the action. We could predict whether the patients would give the correct answer based on the activity of the individual concept cells. To make it a bit more challenging, we also added some trick questions, with two people of the same gender: “Jennifer Aniston and Kamala Harris walked into a bar. She sat at the table.” The patient had to decide themselves who performed the action. We observed that patients tended to choose the person that evoked the most activity in the hippocampus at the start of the sentence. This could be based on chance fluctuations in activity on a trial-by-trial basis or an internal preference for one of the two characters in the sentence.”

The bigger picture

Dijksterhuis: “The hippocampus is important for learning and memory, but it remains unclear how the hippocampus is involved in the interaction between memory and language. How do we remember what we’ve read? When you think of something you’ve read, you have different concepts that together create the story. Pronouns help us to understand who did what in the story and cells in the hippocampus encode these actions into our memory. Ultimately, we want to know how an entire memory is formed and represented in the brain.”

“It is of great value that this group of patients has given their permission to participate in our research. We can only very rarely measure the activity of single brain cells in people who are reading and it is impossible to study these processes in animals. When we get the chance, we try to get as much out of it as possible.”

Source: Science

END

[Attachments] See images for this press release:
How are pronouns processed in the memory-region of our brain? How are pronouns processed in the memory-region of our brain? 2

ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:

Researchers synthesize high-energy-density cubic gauche nitrogen at atmospheric pressure

Researchers synthesize high-energy-density cubic gauche nitrogen at atmospheric pressure
2024-09-27
Recently, a research group led by Prof. WANG Xianlong from the Hefei Institutes of Physical Science of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, successfully synthesized high-energy-density materials cubic gauche nitrogen (cg-N) at atmospheric pressure by treating potassium azide (KN3) using the plasma-enhanced chemical vapour deposition technique (PECVD). The research results were published in Science Advances. Cg-N is a pure nitrogen material consisting of nitrogen atoms bonded by N-N single bonds, resembling the structure of diamond. It has attracted attention because it has a high-energy-density and produces only nitrogen gas when it decomposes. ...

Ancient sunken seafloor reveals earth’s deep secrets

Ancient sunken seafloor reveals earth’s deep secrets
2024-09-27
University of Maryland scientists uncovered evidence of an ancient seafloor that sank deep into Earth during the age of dinosaurs, challenging existing theories about Earth’s interior structure. Located in the East Pacific Rise (a tectonic plate boundary on the floor of the southeastern Pacific Ocean), this previously unstudied patch of seafloor sheds new light on the inner workings of our planet and how its surface has changed over millions of years. The team’s findings were published in the journal Science Advances on September 27, 2024. Led by geology postdoctoral researcher Jingchuan Wang, the team used innovative seismic imaging techniques to ...

Automatic speech recognition learned to understand people with Parkinson’s disease — by listening to them

Automatic speech recognition learned to understand people with Parkinson’s disease — by listening to them
2024-09-27
As Mark Hasegawa-Johnson combed through data from his latest project, he was pleasantly surprised to uncover a recipe for Eggs Florentine. Sifting through hundreds of hours of recorded speech will unearth a treasure or two, he said. Hasegawa-Johnson leads the Speech Accessibility Project, an initiative at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign to make voice recognition devices more useful for people with speech disabilities. In the project’s first published study, researchers asked an automatic ...

Addressing global water security challenges: New study reveals investment opportunities and readiness levels

2024-09-27
NEW YORK, September 27, 2024 – Water scarcity, pollution, and the burden of waterborne diseases are urgent issues threatening global health and security. A recently published study in the journal Global Environmental Change highlights the pressing need for innovative economic strategies to bolster water security investments, focusing on the “enabling environment” that influences regional readiness for new business solutions. Initiated and led by researchers at the Advanced Science Research Center at the CUNY Graduate Center (CUNY ASRC), ...

Commonly used drug could transform treatment of rare muscle disorder

2024-09-27
The study, published in Lancet Neurology, detailed the “head-to-head” trial implemented by the researchers to test two drugs, mexiletine and lamotrigine, on people with the condition. The trial, which was conducted at the UCL Queen Square Multidisciplinary Centre for Neuromuscular Diseases and the National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery, UCLH, involved 60 adults with confirmed non-dystrophic myotonia. Patients were randomly assigned to receive either mexiletine for eight weeks followed by lamotrigine for eight weeks, or the reverse order, with a seven-day ...

Michael Frumovitz, M.D., posthumously honored with Julie and Ben Rogers Award for Excellence

Michael Frumovitz, M.D., posthumously honored with Julie and Ben Rogers Award for Excellence
2024-09-27
HOUSTON ― The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center has posthumously awarded Michael Frumovitz, M.D., with the Julie and Ben Rogers Award for Excellence in Patient Care. The annual award recognizes employees who consistently demonstrate excellence in their work and dedication to MD Anderson’s mission to end cancer. The award’s focus rotates among the areas of patient care, research, education, prevention and administration, with this year’s award focusing on patient care.  Frumovitz dedicated more than 20 years of service to MD Anderson, most recently as chief patient experience officer and professor in Gynecologic ...

NIH grant supports research to discover better treatments for heart failure

2024-09-27
A University of Arizona College of Medicine – Phoenix researcher was recently awarded a $1.9 million National Institutes of Health grant to study the molecular mechanisms of how dilated cardiomyopathy progresses to heart failure, which could eventually lead to better preventive and treatment options for heart failure. Heart failure is inextricably linked with dilated cardiomyopathy, or DCM, a disease characterized by the progressive enlargement of the heart and reduced contractility reflected by reduced ejection fraction. ...

Clinical cancer research in the US is increasingly dominated by pharmaceutical industry sponsors, study finds

2024-09-27
Clinical cancer research in the U.S. is increasingly dominated by pharmaceutical industry sponsors, study finds Study underscores need for increased investment in federally funded cancer clinical trials SEATTLE – September 27, 2024 – Researchers at Fred Hutch Cancer Center identified a substantial increase over the past decade in the proportion of patients with cancer in the U.S. who participate in pharmaceutical industry sponsored clinical trials compared to those conducted with federal government support. Published in The Journal of Clinical Oncology and presented at the ASCO Quality Care Symposium, these findings reveal trends of underinvestment in federally ...

Discovery of 3,775-year-old preserved log supports ‘wood vaulting’ as a climate solution

Discovery of 3,775-year-old preserved log supports ‘wood vaulting’ as a climate solution
2024-09-27
A new study published in the journal Science suggests that an ordinary old log could help refine strategies to tackle climate change. A team of researchers led by University of Maryland Atmospheric and Oceanic Science Professor Ning Zeng analyzed a 3,775-year-old log and the soil it was excavated from. Their analysis, published on September 27, 2024, revealed that the log had lost less than 5% carbon dioxide from its original state thanks to the low-permeability clay soil that covered it. “The wood is nice and solid—you could probably make a piece of furniture out of it,” Zeng noted.  Understanding the ...

Preterm births are on the rise, with ongoing racial and economic gaps

2024-09-27
Preterm births have increased by more than 10 percent over the past decade, with racial and socioeconomic disparities persisting over time, according to a new study analyzing more than five million births. The study, published in the journal JAMA Network Open, also found that some factors that increase the risk for preterm birth—such as diabetes, sexually transmitted infections, and mental health conditions—became much more common over the past decade, while other factors that protect against preterm birth declined.  “Our findings not only show that preterm births are on the rise, but provide clues as ...

LAST 30 PRESS RELEASES:

Genomic study identifies human, animal hair in ‘man-eater’ lions’ teeth

These 19th century lions from Kenya ate humans, DNA collected from hairs in their teeth shows

A potential non-invasive stool test and novel therapy for endometriosis

Racial and ethnic disparities in age-specific all-cause mortality during the COVID-19 pandemic

Delft scientists discover how innate immunity envelops bacteria

Workforce diversity is key to advancing One Health

Genome Research publishes a special issue on innovations in computational biology

A quick and easy way to produce anode materials for sodium-ion batteries using microwaves

‘Inside-out’ galaxy growth observed in the early universe

Protein blocking bone development could hold clues for future osteoporosis treatment

A new method makes high-resolution imaging more accessible

Tiny magnetic discs offer remote brain stimulation without transgenes

Illuminating quantum magnets: Light unveils magnetic domains

Different types of teenage friendships critical to wellbeing as we age, scientists find

Hawaii distillery project wins funding from Scottish brewing and distilling award

Trinity researchers find ‘natural killer’ cells that live in the lung are ready for a sugar rush

$7 Million from ARPA-H to tackle lung infections through innovative probiotic treatment

Breakdancers may risk ‘headspin hole’ caused by repetitive headspins, doctors warn

Don’t rely on AI chatbots for accurate, safe drug information, patients warned

Nearly $10M investment will expand and enhance stroke care in Minnesota, South Dakota

Former Georgia, Miami coach Mark Richt named 2025 Paul “Bear” Bryant Heart of a Champion

$8.1M grant will allow researchers to study the role of skeletal stem cells in craniofacial bone diseases and deformities

Northwestern to promote toddler mental health with $11.7 million NIMH grant

A new study finds that even positive third-party ratings can have negative effects

Optimizing inhibitors that fight antibiotic resistance

New Lancet Commission calls for urgent action on self-harm across the world

American Meteorological Society launches free content for weather enthusiasts with “Weather Band”

Disrupting Asxl1 gene prevents T-cell exhaustion, improving immunotherapy

How your skin tone could affect your meds

NEC Society, Cincinnati Children's, and UNC Children’s announce NEC Symposium in Chicago

[Press-News.org] How are pronouns processed in the memory-region of our brain?