Abstract

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Evidence is presented that EEG oscillations in the alpha and theta band reflect memory performance in particular. Good performance is related to two types of EEG phenomena: a tonic increase in alpha but a decrease in theta power, and a large phasic decrease in alpha but increase in theta, depending on the type of memory demands. In a similar way as brain volume does, upper alpha power increases from early childhood to adulthood, whereas the opposite holds true for the late part of the lifespan. Alpha power is lowered and theta power enhanced in subjects with a variety of different neurological disorders. Furthermore, after sustained wakefulness and during the transition from waking to sleeping when the ability to respond to external stimuli ceases, upper alpha power decreases, whereas theta increases. Event-related changes indicate that the extent of upper alpha desynchronization is positively correlated with (semantic) long-term memory performance, whereas theta synchronization is positively correlated with the ability to encode new information.

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