Episodic memory declines with advancing adult age. This decline is particularly pronounced when associations between items and their contexts need to be formed. According to theories of neural communication, the precise coupling of gamma power to the phase of the theta rhythm supports associative memory formation. To investigate whether age differences in associative memory are related to compromised theta–gamma coupling, we took EEG recordings during the encoding phase of an item-context association task. Fifty-eight younger (33 females) and 55 (24 females) older adults studied pictures of objects superimposed on background scenes. In a recognition test, objects were presented on old or new backgrounds, and participants responded if they had seen (1) the object and (2) the object–scene pair. Theta–gamma coupling supported pair memory formation in both age groups. Whereas pair memory was associated with coupling closer to the peak of the theta rhythm, item-only memory was associated with a deviation in pha...

Sarael Alcauter is an assistant professor in the department of behavioral and cognitive neurobiology at the Institute of Neurobiology, National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM).

Sergei Kirov is a professor in the department of neurosurgery and brain and the Behavior Discovery Institute at the Medical College of Georgia.

Sheena Josselyn is a senior scientist in The Hospital for Sick Children’s Neurosciences and Mental Health Program.

Sho Aoki is a postdoctoral scholar at the Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology.

Silke Nuber and coworkers generated and deeply characterized numerous transgenic rodent models to study PD and related disorders, including the first inducible α-synuclein (αS) transgenic mice, humanized BAC-wildtype human αS tg rat models.

Sridevi Venkatesan is a graduate of the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, in India, and is currently a third-year PhD student in the department of physiology at the University of Toronto.

Stephanie Perez is a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio.

Stephen Chang is a postdoctoral research fellow in Kyle Smith’s laboratory at Dartmouth College.

Stephen Dewhurst is the associate vice president for health sciences research and vice dean for research at the University of Rochester School of Medicine and Dentistry.