Brain may forge some memories in waves
By Bruce Bower
Although people effortlessly remember all sorts of everyday events, scientists are struggling to explain how the brain makes this possible. In two critical brain areas, such memory may hinge more on the timing than on the strength of neural activity, according to a team of neuroscientists.
As volunteers study word lists, clusters of neurons in the rhinal cortex and the hippocampus–adjacent brain areas already implicated in memory–fire synchronized electrical bursts that pave the way for remembering those words later, argue Jürgen Fell of the University of Bonn in Germany and his colleagues.