Novelty-Sensitive Dopaminergic Neurons in the Human Substantia Nigra Predict Success of Declarative Memory Formation (Current Biology)

Kaminski et al. show that human substantia nigra neurons are modulated by stimulus novelty and that phase locking of these neurons to frontal cortical oscillations predicts memory formation. These findings provide direct single-neuron evidence for the engagement of the dopamine system in human declarative memory formation.