Rationale: Brain waves reflect collective behavior of neurons and provide insight into distributed network processing. Frontal and hippocampal theta oscillations (4-7 Hz) were linked to cognitive tasks and animal studies have suggested an involvement of glutamatergic neurotransmission in integrative frontal-hippocampal processing. Human evidence for such relationships is lacking.
Methods: Here, we studied the associations between glutamate concentrations in the hippocampal region, measured by a 3-T proton magnetic resonance spectroscopy (1H-MRS), and EEG theta activity during an auditory target detection paradigm.
Results: A robust relationship between hippocampal glutamate and frontal theta activity during stimulus processing was found. Moreover, frontal theta oscillations were related to response speed.
Conclusion: The results suggest a functional coupling between the frontal cortex and hippocampal region during stimulus processing and support the idea of the hippocampus as a neural rhythm generator driven by glutamatergic neurotransmission. These preliminary data show, for the first time, a relationship between in vivo measured glutamate and basic cerebral information processing in humans.