贝勒医学院Sameer A. Sheth团队近日取得一项新成果。经过不懈努力，他们开发出麻醉后人类海马体的可塑性和语言。相关论文于2026年5月6日发表于国际顶尖学术期刊《自然》杂志上。

在这里，研究人员证明了在全身麻醉引起的意识丧失下，个体的古怪辨别、语义处理和在线预测的持久性。在给麻醉的病人播放一系列音调时，小组使用高密度神经像素微电极记录了人类海马体的单单元和局部场电位神经活动，小组发现海马体神经元和局部振荡保留了一些对古怪音调的检测。这个效应值随着实验的进行而增加(大约是10Min)，表现出表征的可塑性。一个生物学上可接受的递归神经网络模型表明，学习和古怪表示是柔性音调识别的一个突现特性。

此外，当该课题组人员播放语言刺激时，单个单元和局部场电位携带有关自然语音的语义和语法特征的信息，甚至预测即将到来的单词的语义信息。综上所述，这些结果表明，即使在无意识状态下，海马体对感觉刺激的复杂处理也会发生，而海马体在解剖学和功能上都与初级感觉皮质相距甚远。

据介绍，意识是认知的基本组成部分，但高阶模式识别在多大程度上依赖于意识仍有争议。

附：英文原文

Title: Plasticity and language in the anaesthetized human hippocampus

Author: Katlowitz, Kalman A., Cole, Eric R., Mickiewicz, Elizabeth A., Shah, Shraddha, Franch, Melissa, Adkinson, Joshua A., Belanger, James L., Mathura, Raissa K., Meszna, Domokos, McGinley, Matthew, Muoz, William, Banks, Garrett P., Cash, Sydney S., Hsu, Chih-Wei, Paulk, Angelique C., Provenza, Nicole R., Watrous, Andrew J., Williams, Ziv, Goldman, Alica M., Krishnan, Vaishnav, Maheshwari, Atul, Heilbronner, Sarah R., Kim, Robert, Rungratsameetaweemana, Nuttida, Hayden, Benjamin Y., Sheth, Sameer A.

Issue&Volume: 2026-05-06

Abstract: Consciousness is a fundamental component of cognition1, but the degree to which higher-order pattern recognition relies on it remains disputed2,3. Here we demonstrate the persistence of oddball discrimination, semantic processing and online prediction in individuals under general-anaesthesia-induced loss of consciousness4,5. Using high-density Neuropixels microelectrodes6 to record both single-unit and local-field-potential neural activity in the human hippocampus while playing a series of tones to anaesthetized patients, we found that hippocampal neurons and local oscillations retained some detection of oddball tones. This effect size grew over the course of the experiment (around 10min), demonstrating representational plasticity. A biologically plausible recurrent neural network model showed that learning and oddball representation are an emergent property of flexible tone discrimination. Moreover, when we played language stimuli, single units and local field potentials carried information about the semantic and grammatical features of natural speech, even predicting semantic information about upcoming words. Together these results indicate that in the hippocampus, which is anatomically and functionally distant from primary sensory cortices7, complex processing of sensory stimuli occurs even in the unconscious state.

DOI: 10.1038/s41586-026-10448-0

Source: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-026-10448-0