X-Message-Number: 12363
Date: Fri, 03 Sep 1999 16:36:40 -0400
From: Jan Coetzee <>
Subject: Real-Time Tracking of Memory

Real-Time Tracking of Memory
Formation in the Human Rhinal
Cortex and Hippocampus

Guill n Fern ndez, 1* Arndt Effern, 12
Thomas Grunwald, 1 Nico Pezer, 1 Klaus Lehnertz, 1
Matthias D mpelmann, 1 Dirk Van Roost, 3
Christian E. Elger 1

A fundamental question about human memory is which brain structures are
involved, and when,
in transforming experiences into memories. This experiment sought to
identify neural correlates
of memory formation with the use of intracerebral electrodes implanted
in the brains of patients
with temporal lobe epilepsy. Event-related potentials (ERPs) were
recorded directly from the
medial temporal lobe (MTL) as the patients studied single words. ERPs
elicited by words
subsequently recalled in a memory test were contrasted with ERPs
elicited by unrecalled
words. Memory formation was associated with distinct but interrelated
ERP differences within
the rhinal cortex and the hippocampus, which arose after about 300 and
500 milliseconds,
respectively. These findings suggest that declarative memory formation
is dissociable into
subprocesses and sequentially organized within the MTL.

1 Department of Epileptology,
2 Department of Radiation and Nuclear Physics,
3 Department of Neurosurgery, University of Bonn, 53105 Bonn, Germany.
*   To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail:


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