IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/nat/nature/v464y2010i7290d10.1038_nature08860.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Human memory strength is predicted by theta-frequency phase-locking of single neurons

Author

Listed:
  • Ueli Rutishauser

    (Computation and Neural Systems and Division of Biology,)

  • Ian B. Ross

    (Epilepsy & Brain Mapping Unit, Huntington Memorial Hospital, Pasadena, California 91105, USA)

  • Adam N. Mamelak

    (Epilepsy & Brain Mapping Unit, Huntington Memorial Hospital, Pasadena, California 91105, USA
    Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, Los Angeles, California 90048, USA)

  • Erin M. Schuman

    (Computation and Neural Systems and Division of Biology,
    Howard Hughes Medical Institute, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, California 91125, USA
    Present address: Max Planck Institute for Brain Research, Max-von-Laue Strasse 3, 60438 Frankfurt am Main, Germany.)

Abstract

Making memories stick Work with epilepsy patients being assessed for surgical treatment with electrodes implanted in the hippocampus and amygdala shows that successful memory formation can be predicted by the degree of coordination of spike timing relative to the local theta oscillation. When more stereotyped spiking was recorded, the subjects were able to retrieve the associated memories with more confidence. Brain oscillations in the 3–8 Hz 'theta' frequency range had been thought to be associated with synaptic plasticity and behavioural experiments suggest they may relate to memory, but until now the relationship between single neuron activity, oscillations and behavioural learning was been unknown in humans. By identifying conditions conducive to memory formation, studies of this type might one day throw some light on strategies that might be used to optimize stimulus presentation in learning situations for humans.

Suggested Citation

  • Ueli Rutishauser & Ian B. Ross & Adam N. Mamelak & Erin M. Schuman, 2010. "Human memory strength is predicted by theta-frequency phase-locking of single neurons," Nature, Nature, vol. 464(7290), pages 903-907, April.
    • Handle: RePEc:nat:nature:v:464:y:2010:i:7290:d:10.1038_nature08860
    DOI: 10.1038/nature08860
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.nature.com/articles/nature08860
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1038/nature08860?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Eymann, Vera & Lachmann, Thomas & Beck, Ann-Kathrin & Czernochowski, Daniela, 2024. "EEG oscillatory evidence for the temporal dynamics of divergent and convergent thinking in the verbal knowledge domain," Intelligence, Elsevier, vol. 104(C).
    2. Sina Mackay & Thomas P. Reber & Marcel Bausch & Jan Boström & Christian E. Elger & Florian Mormann, 2024. "Concept and location neurons in the human brain provide the ‘what’ and ‘where’ in memory formation," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 15(1), pages 1-9, December.
    3. Sazan Guri, 2015. "Public Spaces in the Focus of Citizen’s Right - Case Study - Urban Spaces Tirana," European Journal of Interdisciplinary Studies Articles, Revistia Research and Publishing, vol. 1, ejis_v1_i.
    4. Guillaume Etter & Suzanne Veldt & Jisoo Choi & Sylvain Williams, 2023. "Optogenetic frequency scrambling of hippocampal theta oscillations dissociates working memory retrieval from hippocampal spatiotemporal codes," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 14(1), pages 1-18, December.
    5. Manuela Costa & Diego Lozano-Soldevilla & Antonio Gil-Nagel & Rafael Toledano & Carina R. Oehrn & Lukas Kunz & Mar Yebra & Costantino Mendez-Bertolo & Lennart Stieglitz & Johannes Sarnthein & Nikolai , 2022. "Aversive memory formation in humans involves an amygdala-hippocampus phase code," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 13(1), pages 1-16, December.
    6. Marije ter Wal & Juan Linde-Domingo & Julia Lifanov & Frédéric Roux & Luca D. Kolibius & Stephanie Gollwitzer & Johannes Lang & Hajo Hamer & David Rollings & Vijay Sawlani & Ramesh Chelvarajah & Bernh, 2021. "Theta rhythmicity governs human behavior and hippocampal signals during memory-dependent tasks," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 12(1), pages 1-15, December.
    7. Qin, Ying-Mei & Che, Yan-Qiu & Zhao, Jia, 2018. "Effects of degree distributions on signal propagation in noisy feedforward neural networks," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 512(C), pages 763-774.
    8. Lin Zhang & Beibei Sun & Fei Shu & Ying Huang, 2022. "Comparing paper level classifications across different methods and systems: an investigation of Nature publications," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 127(12), pages 7633-7651, December.
    9. Serena Scarpelli & Chiara Bartolacci & Aurora D’Atri & Maurizio Gorgoni & Luigi De Gennaro, 2019. "Mental Sleep Activity and Disturbing Dreams in the Lifespan," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 16(19), pages 1-23, September.
    10. Cui, Kai & Li, Xinxue & Li, Gang, 2023. "What kind of fiscal policies and natural resources efficiency promotes green economic growth? Evidence from regression analysis," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 85(PB).
    11. Weiwei Ding & Yuhong Zhang & Liya Huang, 2022. "Using a Novel Functional Brain Network Approach to Locate Important Nodes for Working Memory Tasks," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(6), pages 1-14, March.
    12. Tamara Gedankien & Ryan Joseph Tan & Salman Ehtesham Qasim & Haley Moore & David McDonagh & Joshua Jacobs & Bradley Lega, 2023. "Acetylcholine modulates the temporal dynamics of human theta oscillations during memory," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 14(1), pages 1-13, December.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:nat:nature:v:464:y:2010:i:7290:d:10.1038_nature08860. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.nature.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.