Fig. 3. Firing sequences of local pairs of concept neurons reflect concept relations, potentially leading to synapse modification.
a Raster plots, normalized cross-correlograms and spike shapes of two concept neurons in the right hippocampus during the presentation of each neuron’s preferred stimulus (pretzel for n1 and strawberry for n2). In the main condition (blue), but not during controls (red) neuron n1 responded to the non-preferred strawberry picture (relational response on lower right). Bottom: Trial-by-trial cross-correlograms between both neurons during each picture presentation with colors as above. Peaks around −250, and +350 ms were present only for second picture presentations in the main condition. b Population plots of trial-by-trial cross-correlograms between all pairs of concept neurons of the same brain region. Data are presented as mean values ± SEM (solid lines and shaded areas). Red horizontal lines indicate significant differences (p < 0.01) between the main-comparison condition and controls as quantified by a two-sided cluster permutation test. Pictures of objects (a) were obtained from https://commons.wikimedia.org under the Creative Commons CC0 1.0 Universal Public Domain Dedication. Source data are provided as a Source Data file.