Timing of Single-Neuron and Local Field Potential Responses in the Human Medial Temporal Lobe

The relationship between the firing of single cells and local field potentials (LFPs) has received increasing attention, with studies in animals [1–11] and humans [12–14]. Recordings in the human medial temporal lobe (MTL) have demonstrated the existence of neurons with selective and invariant responses [15], with a relatively late but precise response onset around 300 ms after stimulus presentation [16–18] and firing only upon conscious recognition of the stimulus [19]. This represents a much later onset than expected from direct projections from inferotemporal cortex [16, 18]. The neural mechanisms underlying this onset remain unclear. To address this issue, we performed a joint analysis of single-cell and LFP responses during a visual recognition task. Single-neuron responses were preceded by a global LFP deflection in the theta range. In addition, there was a local and stimulus-specific increase in the single-trial gamma power. These LFP responses correlated with conscious recognition. The timing of the neurons’ firing was phase locked to these LFP responses. We propose that whereas the gamma phase locking reflects the activation of local networks encoding particular recognized stimuli, the theta phase locking reflects a global activation that provides a temporal window for processing consciously perceived stimuli in the MTL.