Event Abstract Back to Event Theta amplitude changes in anticipation of stimulus novelty Bianca Wittmann1*, R. J. Dolan1 and E. Düzel2, 3 1 Wellcome Trust Centre for Neuroimaging, University College London, United Kingdom 2 Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, University College London, United Kingdom 3 Department of Neurology II, Otto von Guericke University, Germany Pre-stimulus electrophysiological activity has been shown to correlate with subsequent episodic memory for stimuli both when stimuli are preceded by cues and when they are not cued. At the same time, memory performance can be enhanced when novel stimuli are preceded by a novelty-predicting cue. These novelty-predicitive cues have been shown to be associated with increased striatal and hippocampal activity in fMRI. This study now investigated the electrophysiological correlates of pre-stimulus cue-dependent activity. After familiarizing participants with a set of landscape pictures, MEG recordings were taken while presenting familiar and unfamiliar stimuli in random sequence. In each trial, the familiarity status of the upcoming stimulus was predicted by a cue with 75% validity. We found differential theta and alpha amplitudes during the pre-stimulus phase dependent on cue type. Electrophysiological activity also reflected the actual novelty status of each stimulus. Our findings suggest a contribution of pre- and poststimulus theta activity to novelty-related memory encoding and further support previous findings on the impact of pre-stimulus activity on memory encoding. Conference: 10th International Conference on Cognitive Neuroscience, Bodrum, Turkey, 1 Sep - 5 Sep, 2008. Presentation Type: Poster Presentation Topic: Brain Electrical Oscillations in Cognition Citation: Wittmann B, Dolan RJ and Düzel E (2008). Theta amplitude changes in anticipation of stimulus novelty. Conference Abstract: 10th International Conference on Cognitive Neuroscience. doi: 10.3389/conf.neuro.09.2009.01.153 Copyright: The abstracts in this collection have not been subject to any Frontiers peer review or checks, and are not endorsed by Frontiers. They are made available through the Frontiers publishing platform as a service to conference organizers and presenters. The copyright in the individual abstracts is owned by the author of each abstract or his/her employer unless otherwise stated. Each abstract, as well as the collection of abstracts, are published under a Creative Commons CC-BY 4.0 (attribution) licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) and may thus be reproduced, translated, adapted and be the subject of derivative works provided the authors and Frontiers are attributed. For Frontiers’ terms and conditions please see https://www.frontiersin.org/legal/terms-and-conditions. Received: 05 Dec 2008; Published Online: 05 Dec 2008. * Correspondence: Bianca Wittmann, Wellcome Trust Centre for Neuroimaging, University College London, London, United Kingdom, b.wittmann@ucl.ac.uk Login Required This action requires you to be registered with Frontiers and logged in. To register or login click here. Abstract Info Abstract The Authors in Frontiers Bianca Wittmann R. J Dolan E. Düzel Google Bianca Wittmann R. J Dolan E. Düzel Google Scholar Bianca Wittmann R. J Dolan E. Düzel PubMed Bianca Wittmann R. J Dolan E. Düzel Related Article in Frontiers Google Scholar PubMed Abstract Close Back to top Javascript is disabled. Please enable Javascript in your browser settings in order to see all the content on this page.