Hypoxia or global ischemia causes rapid loss of consciousness and a sudden increase in spontaneous transmitter release suggesting that coordinated synaptic activity is impaired. Gamma oscillations (30-100 Hz) are thought to provide for binding of parallel processed information in the brain, contributing to cognition and formation of short-term memory. We hypothesized that gamma-oscillations are rapidly blocked by hypoxia and that prolonged hypoxia reduces the capability to generate such activity. In ventral hippocampal slices, kainate-induced gamma-oscillations reversibly declined 40 s after onset of 3 min hypoxia. Repetition of such hypoxic periods led to accumulative impairment of gamma-activities. By contrast, 6 min of hypoxia led to a transient anoxic depolarization after which gamma-oscillations remained almost completely blocked.