Friedemann Pulvermueller (1994) Why Cell Assembly Ignition Should
. Psycoloquy: 5(65) Brain Rhythms (6)
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Psycoloquy 5(65): Why Cell Assembly Ignition Should
WHY CELL ASSEMBLY IGNITION SHOULD
LEAD TO GAMMA BAND RESPONSES
Reply to Miller on Brain-Rhythms
Friedemann Pulvermueller
Institut fuer Medizinische Psychologie und
Verhaltensneurobiologie, Universitaet Tuebingen,
Gartenstrasse 29, 72074 Tuebingen, Germany
pumue@language01.medpsych.theoretische-medizin.uni-tuebingen.de
Abstract
Miller (1994) points out that ignition of a widely
distributed but nevertheless tightly connected population of
cortical neurons (cell assembly) may, in principle, lead to
spectral responses in various frequency bands. However, if recent
quantitative neuroanatomical data about fiber size frequencies in
humans are valid, cortico-cortical information exchange takes place
primarily in the millisecond range. If reverberations in
cortico-cortical loops underlie differential spectral responses,
they may accordingly be expected to be visible primarily in the
gamma range. Miller is absolutely right in pointing out that
the model presented in our target article is only one way of
accounting for the data. At this point, the development of
competing models appears to be most desirable in the field of
cognitive neuroscience.
Keywords
brain theory, cell assembly, cognition, event related
potentials (ERP), electroencephalograph (EEG), gamma band, Hebb,
language, lexical processing, magnetoencephalography (MEG),
psychophysiology, periodicity, power spectral analysis, synchrony
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