ERC Starting Grant for research on the role of brain waves in memory

Imagine walking into a room full of new people. You try to remember their faces, names, and maybe even where they come from. Our brain does this every day without mixing up all these details. But exactly how it does so is still unknown. Miles Wischnewski will investigate this with an ERC Starting Grant.

The hypothesis is that brain waves play a key role. By processing information at different phases of the wave, the brain may keep names, faces, and other details separate. This mechanism, called phase coding, has been observed in animals but has hardly been studied in humans.

Thanks to new, non-invasive techniques, this is now possible. The project combines measuring brain waves with precise brain stimulation during memory tasks to uncover how the timing of brain activity structures our memory.

The research could provide fundamentally new insights into how memories are stored and why this sometimes fails, for example in dementia or after brain injury.