{"id":1372,"date":"2022-10-27T11:00:00","date_gmt":"2022-10-27T11:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.syngli.com\/blog\/?p=1372"},"modified":"2025-05-20T12:37:05","modified_gmt":"2025-05-20T12:37:05","slug":"time-cells-how-do-we-keep-track-of-time","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.syngli.com\/blog\/time-cells-how-do-we-keep-track-of-time\/","title":{"rendered":"Time cells: How do we keep track of time?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The human brain has a remarkable ability to keep track of a sequence of events, allowing us to properly recall the correct order in which things happened. Researchers have long suspected that neurons in the hippocampus, known as “time cells,” play a crucial role in encoding temporal information and helping us create and recall memories. Recent research has confirmed this theory<\/a>, showing that these time cells are active even when nothing in particular is happening, encoding the flow of time and helping us remember the order of events.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Time cells are neurons in the hippocampus that represent temporal information, and they have previously been found in rats. However, less was known about how they work in the human brain, until a team of researchers led by neuroscientist Leila Reddy from the Brain and Cognition Research Center (CerCo) in France monitored electrical activity in the brains of 15 epilepsy patients using microelectrodes implanted in the hippocampus. The participants were presented with a sequence of images and asked to memorize the order. The electrodes recorded specific neurons in the hippocampus firing in response during the experiment, both during specific moments and during gaps when no images were shown. The researchers found that time cells in the human brain are “multi-dimensional”, capable of encoding information in relation to time, but also responding to different kinds of sensory information or stimuli.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Image created with Google Gemini<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The team believes that the multi-dimensional behaviour of these time neurons might be what records the ‘what’, ‘where’, and ‘when’ of experiences, stitching elements together to make up coherent memories from a jumble of inputs. According to the researchers, \u201cCentral to our experience of reliving the past is our ability to vividly recall specific events that occurred at a specific place and in a specific temporal order\u2026 Our results provide further evidence that human hippocampal neurons represent the flow of time in an experience.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The human brain has a remarkable ability to keep track of a sequence of events, allowing us to properly recall the correct order in which things happened. Researchers have long suspected that neurons in the hippocampus, known as “time cells,” play a crucial role in encoding temporal information and helping us create and recall memories…. View Article<\/a>","protected":false},"author":43,"featured_media":1591,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[67,93,46,56],"class_list":["post-1372","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-brain","tag-cognitive-stimulation","tag-memory","tag-neuroscience"],"yoast_head":"\nTime cells: How do we keep track of time? - Syngli - Blog<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Recent research discovers how time cells in the hippocampus help us remember the sequence of events by encoding temporal information.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.syngli.com\/blog\/time-cells-how-do-we-keep-track-of-time\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Time cells: How do we keep track of time? 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