Nature Neuroscience • Vol 28 • No 4
Phase of firing does not reflect temporal order in sequence memory of humans and recurrent neural networks
March 2025 • S Liebe, Johannes Niediek, Matthijs Pals, Thomas P. Reber, Jennifer Faber, Jan Boström, Christian E. Elger, Jakob H. Macke, Florian Mormann
Abstract The temporal order of a sequence of events has been thought to be reflected in the ordered firing of neurons at different phases of theta oscillations. Here we assess this by measuring single neuron activity (1,420 neurons) and local field potentials (921 channels) in the medial temporal lobe of 16 patients with epilepsy performing a working-memory task for temporal order. During memory maintenance, we observe theta oscillations, preferential firing of single neurons to theta phase and a close relationshi…