Memory development and event-related brain potentials in children

This review examines the evidence for the maturation of memory function dur ing childhood using event-related brain potentials (ERP), and behavioral me asures. It has been shown that brain structures implicated in different for ms of memory mature during the first and into the second decade of life. Wh ereas the maturation rates of implicit and explicit memory have not been di rectly assessed in the literature, studies of the maturation of the corresp onding brain regions imply that there should be a progression in the matura tion of the different forms of memory. This review also motivates the use o f brain imaging techniques for investigation of memory systems during the d eveloping years. Although, only a handful of such studies with children are currently available, they demonstrate that such techniques can provide inf ormation that may be unavailable otherwise. For example, when children fail to generate the ERP old/new effect, an index of episodic retrieval, it has been suggested that they may lack the necessary pre-existing representatio ns in their long-term lexical or semantic memories. Similarly, age-related differences in ERP scalp topography during source memory paradigms suggest that children, who do not appear to show frontal scalp activity, lack input s from frontal regions that are necessary for successful retrieval of sourc e information. Future research with children will reveal more details about the nature of mnemonic processing during the developmental years. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.