Predicting EEG responses using MEG sources in superior temporal gyrus reveals source asynchrony in patients with schizophrenia.

OBJECTIVE: An integrated analysis using Electroencephalography (EEG) and magnetoencephalography (MEG) is introduced to study abnormalities in early cortical responses to auditory stimuli in schizophrenia. METHODS: Auditory responses were recorded simultaneously using EEG and MEG from 20 patients with schizophrenia and 19 control subjects. Bilateral superior temporal gyrus (STG) sources and their time courses were obtained using MEG for the 30-100 ms post-stimulus interval. The MEG STG source time courses were used to predict the EEG signal at electrode Cz. RESULTS: In control subjects, the STG sources predicted the EEG Cz recording very well (97% variance explained). In schizophrenia patients, the STG sources accounted for substantially (86%) and significantly (P<0.0002) less variance. After MEG-derived STG activity was removed from the EEG Cz signal, the residual signal was dominated by 40 Hz activity, an indication that the remaining variance in EEG is probably contributed by other brain generators, rather than by random noise. CONCLUSIONS: Integrated MEG and EEG analysis can differentiate patients and controls, and suggests a basis for a well established abnormality in the cortical auditory response in schizophrenia, implicating a disorder of functional connectivity in the relationship between STG sources and other brain generators.

Retrograde amnesia after hippocampal damage: recent vs. remote memories in two tasks.

We review evidence from experiments conducted in our laboratory on retrograde amnesia in rats with damage to the hippocampal formation. In a new experiment reported here, we show that N-methyl-D-aspartate (NMDA)-induced hippocampal damage produced retrograde amnesia for both hidden platform and two-choice visible platform discriminations in the Morris water task. For both problems there was a significant trend for longer training-surgery intervals to be associated with worse retention performance. Little support is offered by our work for the concept that there is a process involving hippocampal-dependent consolidation of memories in extrahippocampal permanent storage sites. Long-term memory consolidation may take place within the hippocampus. The hippocampus may be involved permanently in storage and/or retrieval of a variety of relational and nonrelational memories if it was intact at the time of learning, even involving information which is definitely not affected in anterograde amnesia after hippocampal damage.