Human medial temporal lobe neurons link future reward coding with intertemporal choice and impulsivity

Authors

Kehl, M. S., Dürschmid, S., Borger, V., Surges, R., Mormann, F.

Abstract

The ability to delay gratification emerges early in life and is linked to long-term health and economic success. Conversely, high impulsivity, marked by a preference for immediate rewards, can be associated with psychiatric disorders. Although processes underlying human delay discounting have been studied at behavioural and macroscopic neural levels, they remain elusive at the single-neuron level. Specifically, it is unknown how human neurons encode extended delays and predict intertemporal choices, and how these processes are impacted by impulsivity. Here, we record single-neuron activity in the human medial temporal lobe (MTL) to explore decision and delay coding. We identify neurons that predict upcoming decisions in the amygdala and hippocampus. Neurons in the entorhinal cortex and hippocampus encode reward delays, with particularly hippocampal population activity coding prospective temporal periods. Importantly, neuronal activity in impulsive individuals shows diminished prospective temporal coding and predicts decisions only shortly before choices are reported. Our findings reveal how distinct MTL regions contribute to intertemporal decisions and provide insight into the neuronal signatures underlying impulsivity.

Preprint server: bioRxiv
The authors list and abstract were imported from bioRxiv on 11 Jul 2026.

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