Research article

Memory-matches evoke human gamma-responses

Christoph S Herrmann^1,2 , Daniel Lenz¹ , Stefanie Junge¹ , Niko A Busch^1,2 and Burkhard Maess²

¹  Otto-von-Guericke University, Dept. of Biological Psychology P.O. Box 4120, 39016 Magdeburg, Germany

²  Max-Planck-Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience P.O. Box 500 355, 04303 Leipzig, Germany

author email corresponding author email

BMC Neuroscience 2004, 5:13doi:10.1186/1471-2202-5-13

Published:	13 April 2004

Abstract

Background

Human brain activity in the gamma frequency range has been shown to be a correlate of numerous cognitive functions like attention, perception and memory access. More specifically, gamma activity has been found to be enhanced when stimuli are stored in or match with short-term memory (STM). We tested the hypothesis that gamma activity is also evoked when stimuli match representations in long-term-memory (LTM). EEG was recorded from 13 subjects performing a choice reaction task. Visual stimuli were either known real-world objects with a memory representation or novel configurations never seen before.

Results

All stimuli evoked an early gamma response which was maximal over occipital electrodes. This evoked gamma activity was significantly larger for items that matched memory templates.

Conclusions

Therefore, we argue that gamma activity results from the feedback from memory into perception systems. This assumption seems to be true for STM as well as LTM.