Gamma oscillations and object processing in the infant brain

Science. 2000 Nov 24;290(5496):1582-5. doi: 10.1126/science.290.5496.1582.

Abstract

An enduring controversy in neuroscience concerns how the brain "binds" together separately coded stimulus features to form unitary representations of objects. Recent evidence has indicated a close link between this binding process and 40-hertz (gamma-band) oscillations generated by localized neural circuits. In a separate line of research, the ability of young infants to perceive objects as unitary and bounded has become a central focus for debates about the mechanisms of perceptual development. Here we demonstrate that binding-related 40-hertz oscillations are evident in the infant brain around 8 months of age, which is the same age at which behavioral and event-related potential evidence indicates the onset of perceptual binding of spatially separated static visual features.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Electroencephalography*
  • Evoked Potentials, Visual
  • Female
  • Form Perception*
  • Frontal Lobe / physiology*
  • Humans
  • Infant
  • Male
  • Occipital Lobe / physiology
  • Parietal Lobe / physiology