In 5 patients, amygdala spike–SEEG coupling was concentrated in one patient, with no supported hemispheric effect

We tested whether bipolar macro-SEEG band power followed single-unit firing in the human amygdala and whether coupling was stronger in the unit's hemisphere. In OpenNeuro ds003374 v1.1.1, 5 of 9 NIX files contained units (42 units); 3 patients had macro channels in both hemispheres. We used 250-ms bins across 17 24-s video blocks, correlated square-root spike counts with log10 macro power in six bands from 1 to 150 Hz, and compared simultaneous coupling with a 16-shift null that retained block-locked time courses. Ipsilateral mean coupling z was positive in all bands (+0.59 to +1.60), but the high-gamma effect was concentrated in patient 02: 10 of 12 units exceeded their null maximum, compared with 4 of 30 units in the other patients. The pre-registered subject-level test of ipsilateral minus contralateral high-gamma coupling did not support a hemisphere effect (exact one-sided sign-flip p=0.50 across 3 patients; minimum possible p=0.125). Mean ipsilateral high-gamma r was 0.041, corresponding to less than 1% of variance for a typical unit at this resolution. Few patients, within-patient dependence, 16 null shifts, unassessed unit quality, unknown micro-wire-to-contact distance, no condition-specific analysis, and offline analysis limit inference. Do not assume that a bipolar macro amygdala channel reads local unit activity; measure coupling in each patient.

amygdala · SEEG · spike-field coupling · single-unit activity · high-gamma · brain-computer interfaces · OpenNeuro