Medial temporal theta state before an event predicts episodic encoding success in humans

We report a human electrophysiological brain state that predicts successful memory for events before they occur. Using magnetoencephalographic recordings of brain activity during episodic memory encoding, we show that amplitudes of theta oscillations shortly preceding the onsets of words were higher...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences - PNAS 2009-03, Vol.106 (13), p.5365-5370
Main Authors: Guderian, Sebastian, Schott, Björn H, Richardson-Klavehn, Alan, Düzel, Emrah
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Adolescent
Adult
Amplitude
Analysis
Behavioral neuroscience
Biological Sciences
Brain
Female
Hippocampus
Human subjects
Humans
Magnetoencephalography
Male
Memory
Memory - physiology
Memory encoding
Memory recall
Mental Recall
Mental stimulation
Neurosciences
Sensors
Temporal lobe
Temporal Lobe - physiology
Theta Rhythm
Time windows
Young Adult
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:We report a human electrophysiological brain state that predicts successful memory for events before they occur. Using magnetoencephalographic recordings of brain activity during episodic memory encoding, we show that amplitudes of theta oscillations shortly preceding the onsets of words were higher for later-recalled than for later-forgotten words. Furthermore, single-trial analyses revealed that recall rate in all 24 participants tested increased as a function of increasing prestimulus theta amplitude. This positive correlation was independent of whether participants were preparing for semantic or phonemic stimulus processing, thus likely signifying a memory-related theta state rather than a preparatory task set. Source analysis located this theta state to the medial temporal lobe, a region known to be critical for encoding and recall. These findings provide insight into state-related aspects of memory formation in humans, and open a perspective for improving memory through theta-related brain states.
ISSN:0027-8424
1091-6490
DOI:10.1073/pnas.0900289106