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Science 3 September 1999:
Vol. 285. no. 5433, pp. 1582 - 1585
DOI: 10.1126/science.285.5433.1582
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Reports

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

Guillén Fernández, 1* Arndt Effern, 12 Thomas Grunwald, 1 Nico Pezer, 1 Klaus Lehnertz, 1 Matthias Dümpelmann, 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: gf{at}mailer.meb.uni-bonn.de

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