Elektrophysiologie des menschlichen Gedächtnisses: invasive Hirnableitung und Hirnstimulation (EGIHH)

Description of the research group
The Cognitive Electrophysiology and Neurotechnology (CEN) group has two interlinked goals:

1. to understand how the formation, maintenance and retrieval of human memory is supported by the electrophysiological activity of the brain;
2. to develop neurotechnologies which can help us understand the cognitive role of human electrophysiological activity patterns and treat neurological disorders such as memory loss.

Our research leverages on the rare opportunity of measuring brain activity intracranially in patients affected by pharmaco-resistant epilepsy. In pharmaco-resistant epilepsy patients, neurologists use intracranial electroencephalography (iEEG) to delineate the epileptogenic focus, when non-invasive scalp EEG and other techniques have been insufficient to localize it. iEEG is recorded with intracranial electrodes and it has higher spatial resolution and higher signal-to-noise ratio than scalp EEG.
iEEG is generally more used in mesial temporal lobe epilepsy. Therefore, the clinical intracranial macroelectrodes often record electrophysiology signals from the hippocampus, the entorhinal cortex and the amygdala, which are very important for cognitive processes such as memory. However, other areas, such as the frontal cortex, are also not uncommon implantation targets.