Volitional control of individual neurons in the human brain.
Volitional control of individual neurons in the human brain.
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人脑中单个神经元的意志控制。
DOI：
10.1093/brain/awab370
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发表时间：
2021
期刊：
影响因子：
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通讯作者：
Valiante,TaufikA
中科院分区：
文献类型：
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作者：
Patel,Kramay;Katz,ChaimN;Kalia,SuneilK;Popovic,MilosR;Valiante,TaufikA
脑机接口允许神经科学家将特定的神经活动模式与特定的行为联系起来。因此，除了目前的临床应用外，脑机接口还可以用作研究大脑学习和可塑性神经机制的工具。几十年来，使用这种脑机接口的研究表明，动物（非人类灵长类动物和啮齿动物）可以被操作性地调节大脑中各种运动相关结构的神经活动。在这里，我们问人类大脑，一个复杂的相互连接的结构超过800亿个神经元，是否可以学会控制自己在最基本的规模-一个单一的神经元。我们利用独特的机会，记录11个癫痫患者的单个单位，以探索是否在边缘系统和其他记忆相关的大脑结构的一个单一的（直接）神经元的放电率可以在意志控制。为此，我们开发了一个视觉神经反馈任务，参与者被训练通过调节大脑中任意选择的神经元的活动来移动屏幕上的一个块，值得注意的是，参与者能够自愿调节这些以前未研究过的结构中直接神经元的放电频率。我们发现，一部分参与者（学习者）能够在一次培训中提高他们的表现。成功的学习的特征是：（i）直接神经元的高度特异性调制（通过显著增加的放电率和爆发频率证明）;（ii）直接神经元的活动与相邻神经元的活动同时去相关;以及（iii）直接神经元对局部α/β频率振荡的鲁棒锁相，记忆结构中神经元活动的意志控制可能为探索人类记忆的功能和可塑性提供新的途径，而无需外源性刺激。此外，在这些脑区域中的神经活动的自我调节可以为开发用于治疗通常与这些脑结构中的病理活动相关的神经病症（诸如医学难治性癫痫）的新型神经假体提供途径。
Brain–machine interfaces allow neuroscientists to causally link specific neural activity patterns to a particular behaviour. Thus, in addition to their current clinical applications, brain–machine interfaces can also be used as a tool to investigate neural mechanisms of learning and plasticity in the brain. Decades of research using such brain–machine interfaces have shown that animals (non-human primates and rodents) can be operantly conditioned to self-regulate neural activity in various motor-related structures of the brain. Here, we ask whether the human brain, a complex interconnected structure of over 80 billion neurons, can learn to control itself at the most elemental scale—a single neuron.We used the unique opportunity to record single units in 11 individuals with epilepsy to explore whether the firing rate of a single (direct) neuron in limbic and other memory-related brain structures can be brought under volitional control. To do this, we developed a visual neurofeedback task in which participants were trained to move a block on a screen by modulating the activity of an arbitrarily selected neuron from their brain.Remarkably, participants were able to volitionally modulate the firing rate of the direct neuron in these previously uninvestigated structures. We found that a subset of participants (learners), were able to improve their performance within a single training session. Successful learning was characterized by (i) highly specific modulation of the direct neuron (demonstrated by significantly increased firing rates and burst frequency); (ii) a simultaneous decorrelation of the activity of the direct neuron from the neighbouring neurons; and (iii) robust phase-locking of the direct neuron to local alpha/beta-frequency oscillations, which may provide some insights in to the potential neural mechanisms that facilitate this type of learning.Volitional control of neuronal activity in mnemonic structures may provide new ways of probing the function and plasticity of human memory without exogenous stimulation. Furthermore, self-regulation of neural activity in these brain regions may provide an avenue for the development of novel neuroprosthetics for the treatment of neurological conditions that are commonly associated with pathological activity in these brain structures, such as medically refractory epilepsy.