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

References