Chapter 11 - Learning, Amnesia and Memory Flashcards

1
Q

Learning

A

deals with how experience changes the brain

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2
Q

Memory

A

deals with how changes are stored and subsequently reactivated

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3
Q

Amnesia

A

pathological loss of memory

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4
Q

Lobectomy

A

operation in which a lobe or a major part of one, is removed from the brain

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5
Q

Lobotomy

A

operation in which a lobe, or a major part of one, is seperated from the rest of the brain by a large cut is (not removed)

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6
Q

Retrograde amnesia

A

loss of memory for events or information learned before the amnesia-inducing brain injury

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7
Q

Anterograde amnesia

A

Loss of memory for events ocurring after the amnesia-inducing brain injury

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8
Q

Short-term memory

A

storage of new info for brief periods of time while a person attends to it

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9
Q

Long-term memory

A

storage of new information once the person stops attending to it

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10
Q

Digit span

A

Test for short term memory

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11
Q

Which test were administered to the patient H.M.?

A
  1. Digit Span +1 test
  2. Block-tapping memory span test
  3. Mirror-drawing test
  4. Incomplete-picture test
  5. Pavlovian conditioning
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12
Q

Three major scientific contributiond of the H.M case …

A
  1. Medial temproal lobe plays an important role in memory
  2. There are different modes of strage for short-term and remote meory (memories for experience in the distance)
  3. Two distant categories of long-term memories (explicit and implicit)
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13
Q

Memory consolidation

A

Translation of short-term memory into long-term memories.

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14
Q

What are the two distinct categories of the long-term memory?

A
  1. Explicit (conscious)
  2. Implicit (non-conscious)
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15
Q

Medial temporal lobe amnesia

A

Amnesia associated with damage to the temporal lobes, major features are anterograde and retrograde amnesia.

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16
Q

Repetition priming tests

A

Test that assess implicit memory (e.g. Incomplete-picture test)

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17
Q

Semantic memory

A

explicit memories for general facts or information

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18
Q

Episodic memory

A

Explicit memories for particular events

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19
Q

Medial temporal lobe amnesia - shows difficulty in what?

A

poeple with medial temporal lobe amnesia have difficulties with episodic memories but NOT semantic memories (general facts)

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20
Q

Global cerebral ischemia

A

an interruption of blood supply to the entire brain (patients then often suffer from medial temporal lobe amnesia)

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21
Q

What can hippocampal damage by itself lead to?

A

It can produce medial temporal lobe amnesia (some from cases with transient global ischemia)

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22
Q

Transient global ischemia

A

defined by sudden onset in the absence of any obvious cause in otherwise normal adulst (transcient, only lasting 4-6 hours)

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23
Q

Korsakoff’s Syndrome

A
  • disorder of memory common in poeple who have consumed large amounts of alcohol
  • attributable to the brain damage associated with thamine deficiency (often accompanies heavy alcohol consumption)
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24
Q

How is the Korsakoff’s amnesia similar to medial temporal lobe amnesia?

A

During early stages: anterograde amnesia for explicit episodic memory, later: also retrograde amnesia develops.

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25
Q

Alzheimer

A
  • deterioration of memory
  • progressive disorder, eventually dementia develops (incapable of simple activities)
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26
Q

What do predementia Alheimer’s patients display?

A
  • Major anterograde and retrograde deficits in tests of explicit memory
  • Deficits in short-term memory and some types of implicit memory
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27
Q

What causes the reduces level of Acetylcholine (ACT) in Alheimer’s patients?

A

reduction results from the degeneration of the basal forebrain (brain’s main source of ACT)

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28
Q

Concussion

A

temporary distrubance of consciousness produced by a nonpenetrating head injury

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29
Q

Posttraumatic amnesia (PTA)

A

amnesia follwing a non-penetrating blow to the head.

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30
Q

What are the three different stages associated with a concussion-producing blow to the head?

A
  1. A blow to the head produces a coma.
  2. When the victum regains consciousness there is a period of confusion (longer than the coma)
  3. When the period of confusion ends, the victim has retrograde amnesia for events that occured during the period just before the blow and anterograde amnesia for events that occured during the period of confusion.
31
Q

Islands of memory

A

surviving memories for isolated events that ocurred during periods for which other memories have been wiped out.

32
Q

Consolidation

A

refers to the translatione of short-term memories into long-term memories (strengthened storage of memory)

33
Q

Hebb’s theory of memory consolidation

A
  • memories of the short-term are stored in the short term by neural acitvity reverberating (circulating) in closed ciurcuits
  • revereberating patterns of neural activity are susceptible to disruption
  • eventually they induce structural changes in the involved synapses which provide stable long-term storage
34
Q

Electro conclusive shocks (ECS)

A

intense, brief, diffuse seizure-inducing current that us administered to the brain through large electrodes on the scalp.

35
Q

What is the current view on memory consolidation?

A
  1. continues for a very long time, if not indefinetely - lasting memories become mor and more resistant to disruption
  2. Each time a memory is activated, it is updated
36
Q

Standard consolidation theory/dual trace theory

A

memories are temporarily stored in the hippocampus until they can be transferred to a more stbale cortical storage system

37
Q

What is todays view on the hippocampus and consolidation? (regarding concussions)

A

When a concussion experience occurs, it is rapidly and sparsely encoded in a distributed fashion throughout the hippocampus and other involved structures.

38
Q

What is the current view about retained memories?

A

Retained memories become progressively more resistant to disruption by hippocampal damage.

39
Q

Engram

A

change in the brain that stores a memory

40
Q

Reconsolidation

A

each time a memory is retreaved from long-term storage, it is temporarily held in labile short term memory, where it is again susceptible to PTA

41
Q

Monkey version of the delayed non-matching-to-smaple Test (How does the test work?)

A
  • two objects (sample object and new one)
  • the monkey must remeber the sample object so that it can select the new one to obtain food
  • Healthy monkeys perform correctly, mokeys with bilateral medial temporal lobe lesions had major objection-recognition deficits.
42
Q

What hypothesis did the monkey version of the delayed non-matching test?

A

the assumption that the amnesia resulting from medial temporal lobe damage is entirely the consequence of hippocampal damage.

43
Q

How does the rat version of the delayed non-mathcing-to-sample-test work?
(Mumby box)

A
  • two slides doors, when they are opened food is exposed
  • rats must remebers their previous encounter with the sample object
  • and then choose the novel object (in order to get the food)
44
Q

What produces more severe damage - bilateral surgical removal of the medial temporal cortex or the hippocampus?

A
  • temporal cortex (severe deficits)
  • hipocampus (moderate deficits)
45
Q

What performance of tasks do bilaterial lesions on the hippocampus invariable disrupt?

A

performance of tasks that involve memory for spatial location.

46
Q

Morris water maze test - what are the results?

A

intact rates placed at various locations in circular pool of murky water rapidly learn to swim to platform, rats with hippocampal damage lesion have difficulty

47
Q

Radial arm maze test - what are the results?

A

intacts rats learn to visit only those arms with food and don’t visit the other arms, rats with hippocmpal lesion display deficits in both (working and reference memory)

48
Q

reference memory (radial arm maze test)

A

the ability to visit only the baited arms of the radial arm maze

49
Q

working memory (radial arm maze test)

A

ability to refrain from visiting an arm more than once in a given day

50
Q

Place cells

A

neurons that respond only when a subject is in a specific location

51
Q

Entohinal cortex

A

Area of the medial temporal cortex that is a major source of neural signals from the hippocampus

52
Q

Grid cells

A

entorhinal neurons that each have an extensive array of evenly spaced fields, producing a pattern reminiscent of graph paper.

53
Q

major structures of the medial temporal lobes

A
  • hippocampus
  • amygdala
  • and medial temporal cortex
54
Q

Jennifer aniston neurons

A

neurons such as those are found in the medial temporal lobe
- respond to ideas od cencepts rather than to particulars (concept cells)

55
Q

Engram cells

A

neurons that maintain an engram

56
Q

What is the lesion method?

A

If a particular structure were the storage site for all memories of a particular type, then destruction of that structure should eliminate all memories of that type that were ecquired to the lesion. (no results)

57
Q

Why didn’t the lesion method work?

A

Because lesions of particular structures tend to produce either no retrograde amnesia at all or retrograde amnesia for only the experiences that occurred in the dyas or weeks just before the surgery.

58
Q

Two major conclusions from lesions - that don’t produce a retrograde amnesia.

A
  1. memories are stored diffusely in thew bran and this can survive destruction of any single structure.
  2. memorie become more resistant to disruption over time.
59
Q

What kind of memories does the inferotemporal cortext store?

A

plays am important role in storing memories of visual input

60
Q

What kind of memories does the amygdala store?

A
  • plays a special role for memory for the emotional significance of experiences
  • little evidence that the amygdala stores
  • rather involved in strengthening emotionally significant memories
61
Q

Prefrontal cortex

A

the area of the frontal cortex anterior to motor cortex.

62
Q

What kind of memories is lost by patients with large prefrontal lesions?

A
  • Two episodic memory abilities are often lost by patients with large prefrontal lesions
  • display both anterograde and retrograde deficits in memory
  • deficits in working memory
63
Q

What kind of tasks does the prefrontal cortex perform?

A
  • fundamental cognitive processes during working memory task
  • other regions of the prefrontal cortex participate in other memory processes.
64
Q

What kind of memories does the cerebellum store?

A

participates in the storage of memories of learned sensorimotor skills through various neuroplastic mechanism.

65
Q

What kinds of memories does the striatum store?

A

memories for consistent relationships between stimuli and responses - the type of memories that develop incrementally over many trials.

66
Q

What is habit-formation?

A

this striatum-based form of learning

67
Q

Long term potentian

A

the enduring facilitation of synaptic trasnmission that occurs following activation of synapses by high-intensity, high-frequency stimulation of presynaptic neurons.

68
Q

LTP has two key properties that Hebb proposed as charcateristics of the physiological mechanisms of learning and memory

A
  1. LTP can last for a long time
  2. LTP develops only if the firing of the presynaptic neuron is followd by the firing of the post-synaotuc neuron (Co-occurance)
69
Q

What is co-occurance?

A
  • LTP develops only if the firing of presynpatic neuron is followe by the iring of the post-synaptic neuron
  • critical factor in LTP
70
Q

What is Hebb’s postulate for learning?

A

the assumption that co-occurance is a physiologicak necessity for learning and memory

71
Q

LTP as a three-part process (what are these three parts?)

A
  1. Induction
  2. maintenance
  3. Expression
72
Q

NMDA-receptor

A
  • N-methyl-D-asperate receptor
  • most prominent at the synapses at which LTP is commonly studied.
73
Q

3 important discoveries regarding maintenance and expression of LTP

A
  1. LTP occurs only at specific synapses on a postsynaptic neuron
  2. Maintenance of LTP involves structural changes (depend on protein synthesis)
  3. Discovery of numerous trasncription factors.
74
Q

Infantile amnesia

A

the normal abilkty to recall events form early childhood