title: Gamma oscillations and object processing in the infant brain.
abstract: An enduring controversy in neuroscience concerns how the brain "binds" together separately coded stimulus features to form unitary representations of objects. Recent evidence has indicated a close link between this binding process and 40-hertz (gamma-band) oscillations generated by localized neural circuits. In a separate line of research, the ability of young infants to perceive objects as unitary and bounded has become a central focus for debates about the mechanisms of perceptual development. Here we demonstrate that binding-related 40-hertz oscillations are evident in the infant brain around 8 months of age, which is the same age at which behavioral and event-related potential evidence indicates the onset of perceptual binding of spatially separated static visual features.
authors.affiliation: Centre for Brain and Cognitive Development, School of Psychology, Birkbeck College, University of London, Malet Street, London WC1E 7HX, UK. g.csibra@bbk.ac.uk
authors.forename: G
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Csibra
authors.forename: G
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Davis
authors.forename: M W
authors.initials: MW
authors.lastname: Spratling
authors.forename: M H
authors.initials: MH
authors.lastname: Johnson
mesh_terms: D004569:Electroencephalography; D005074:Evoked Potentials, Visual; D005260:Female; D005556:Form Perception; D005625:Frontal Lobe / Q000502:physiology*; D006801:Humans; D007223:Infant; D008297:Male; D009778:Occipital Lobe / Q000502:physiology; D010296:Parietal Lobe / Q000502:physiology