Pronouns reactivate conceptual representations in human hippocampal neurons

During discourse comprehension, every new word adds to an evolving representation of meaning that accumulates over consecutive sentences and constrains the next words. To minimize repetition and utterance length, languages use pronouns, like the word ‘she’, to refer to nouns and phrases that were previously introduced. It has been suggested that language comprehension requires that pronouns activate the same neuronal represen­tations as the nouns themselves. We recorded individual neurons in the human hippocampus during a reading task. Brain-imaging studies have gained insight into the brain regions that activate during sentence and discourse comprehension. However, the resolution of these methods does not suffice to track the neuronal assemblies that encode individual concepts in the human brain during reading. It has become possible to directly record the activity of single neurons in patients who are implanted with electrodes to locate the source of their epilepsy. These studies demo..., We recorded electrophysiological data from micro-wires implanted chronically in the hippocampus of epilepsy patients during a reading task. In total, we recorded from 392 micro-wire electrodes located in the hippocampus during 49 sessions. The signal from the microwires was amplified using impedance-converting head-stages placed on the head of the patient (Neuralynx ‘HS-9’/Blackrock ‘Cabrio’) and it was either recorded with a 64-channel Neuralynx ATLAS system (32 kHz sampling rate) or with a 128-channel Blackrock NeuroPort Biopotential Signal Processing System (30 kHz sampling rate). Digital filters (Neuralynx: high-pass 0.1-1 Hz, low-pass 9000 Hz, Blackrock: high-pass 0.3, low-pass 7500 Hz) were applied after sampling. We used a semi-automated algorithm to determine whether to digitally re-reference the raw signal to a micro-wire from the same bundle. The algorithm attempted to minimise RMS noise levels while also avoiding re-referencing to a micro-wire that exhibited spiking. The choi..., , # Pronouns reactivate conceptual representations in human hippocampal neurons

[https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.0zpc86768](https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.0zpc86768)

This readme includes an introduction to the folders, the main script, and how to run it plus the meaning of the columns of the data matrices that are loaded in.

#### File names: Dijksterhuis-etal-2024-Science.zip and DisciplineSpecificMetadata.json

## Code/Software

The scripts are written in MATLAB and are tested in versions R2020a, R2023a, and R2024a.

The main folder contains:

1. Reproduce_Figures.m
1. This is the script that loads all relevant data and reproduces the main figures of the manuscript.
2. Dependencies
1. NeuralynxMatlabImportExport_v411

see [https://www.urut.ch/new/serendipity/index.php?/pages/nlxtomatlab.html](https://www.urut.ch/new/serendipity/index.php?/pages/nlxtomatlab.html))
2. Robust_Statistical_Toolbox-master

This is a toolbox needed for statistical tests (see [https://githu...,