Selectively Distributed Gamma-Band Responses Studied in Cortex, Reticular Formation, Hippocampus, and Cerebellum

Abstract

Although the amplitude-frequency characteristics upon auditory and visual stimuli were analyzed in detail in Chap. 2, and it was mentioned that these frequency responses contained marked 40 Hz components, in this chapter we will lay special emphasis on the gamma frequency response. We have undertaken this step because in the last decade several approaches have been tried, giving special functional emphasis to the gamma frequency band. Our aim will be to demonstrate that the brain has a distributed neural population system of generators that are excitable in the 40 Hz frequency range. In this chapter, firstly, an account on pioneering work in this rapidly developing branch of electrophysiology is given. Our scope concerning the selectively distributed gamma response system of the brain will be explained extensively in Chap. 26.