Chapter 18 - Learning and Memory Flashcards
1
Q
What’s an engram?
A
- A physical trace that can be found within the brain
- Usually the case with the impact of memory on the brain
2
Q
Anterograde vs. retrograde amnesia?
A
- Anterograde amnesia - patient unable to form new memories
- Retrograde amnesia - inability to access old memories. This may be incomplete with older memories being acceptable and more recent memories are not.
3
Q
What are the two major classical training paradigms for learning and memory?
A
1) Pavlovian conditioning (classical conditioning) (Ivan Pavlov)
2) Operant conditioning (instrumental conditioning) (Edward Thorndike)
4
Q
What’s Pavlovian conditioning?
A
- Learning achieved when a neutral stimulus elicits a response due to repeated pairing with some event
Components involve: - Unconditioned stimulus (UCS) - naturally and automatically triggers an unconditioned response
- Unconditioned response (UCR) - Unlearned, naturally occurring.
- Conditioned stimulus (CS) - an originally neutral stimulus that becomes associated with an UCS to elicit a CR
- Conditioned response (CR) - the learned response to a formerly neutral CS
5
Q
Provide an example of Pavlovian conditioning.
A
- Ex. Eyeblink conditioning using air puff
- UCS = air puff
- UCR = eyeblink to air puff
- CS = tone
- CR = eyeblink to tone
6
Q
What’s operant conditioning?
A
- A learning procedure in which the consequences (i.e., obtaining a reward) of a particular behaviour (i.e., pressing a bar) increase of decrease the probability of the behaviour occurring again.
- Edward Thorndike’s idea
7
Q
What’s an example of operant conditioning?
A
- A cat is placed in a box with the food reward outside
- The hungry cat eventually learns that pressing on the lever will result in getting out of the box and getting to the food.
- Faster trials of this signify faster learning
8
Q
What are the 2 main categories of learning?
A
- Implicit - subjects demonstrate knowledge, such as a skill, conditioned response, or recalling events on prompting, but cannot explicitly retrieve the info (i.e., unconscious)
- Explicit - Subjects can retrieve an item and indicate that they know they retrieved the correct item (conscious)
9
Q
T/F: Classical conditioning is unconscious.
A
- TRUE
10
Q
Non-declarative vs. Declarative memory?
A
- Non-declarative - implicit memory
- Declarative - explicit memory
11
Q
What are the different types of implicit memory?
A
- Procedural memory - the ability to recall a movement sequence or how to perform some act or behaviour
- Priming - using a stimulus to sensitize the nervous system to a later presentation of the same or similar stimulus
- Pavlovian conditioning
- Operant conditioning
12
Q
What’s the purpose if the Gollin figure test?
A
- Used to test visual, implicit memory
- Over time, a drawing is slowly revealed
- Amnesic subjects perform normally at this task, indicative of its implicit role
- Also called the incomplete figures test.
13
Q
What does the pursuit-rotor task assess?
A
- Assesses procedural implicit memory (motor functions)
- More of a difficult task (can take up to one hour to learn)
- Amnesic patients perform normally
14
Q
What’s explicit memory used for?
A
- Memory for events and facts
- Necessitates recalling specific information
- Can be displayed by non-human animals
15
Q
What does Morris’s Swimming task assess?
A
- Can test explicit and long-term memory, depending on the delay
- Can also test spatial memory (short or long-term)
16
Q
What’s multiple memory theory?
A
- Proposes that we have a number of different kinds of memory, each of which is dependent upon different neural structures.
17
Q
What flow of memory info does the multiple memory systems project?
A
- All memory starts in short-term, and then can get moved into long-term memory if required
- From long-term, memories can either go into explicit, implicit, and emotional (conscious and unconscious)
18
Q
What did Karl Lashley attempt to search for?
A
- Was trying to find the engram for memory but searched in vain
- He tried by performing widespread cortical lesions to different brain areas
- The severity of memory disturbances was more so related to the size of the lesion, rather than the location
19
Q
Who was patient H.M.?
A
- Had severe epilepsy, so William Scoville in 1953 performed a bilateral medial temporal lobe resection (i.e., hpc, amygdala, and adjacent neocortical structures)
- Ended up with severe amnesia and would forget things in seconds
- Could still remember faces
- Lacked explicit memory
- Impaired spatial learning
- Implicit memory intact
20
Q
Who was patient J.K.?
A
- Patient who began showing symptoms of Parkinson Disease in his mid-70s, memory problems by 78
- Implicit memory deficit (ex. forgot how to turn on lights)
- Explicit memory intact
- Demonstrated that the basal ganglia is involved in implicit memory
21
Q
What’s Korsakoff syndrome?
A
- Permanent retrograde and anterograde amnesia
- Diencephalic damage due to chronic alcoholism, leading to malnutrition and a vitamin B (thiamine) deficiency
- Thalamus (an important relay centre) and hypothalamic mammillary bodies are damaged specifically, both important for memory consolidation
- Confabulation (making up stories) is common in these patients
22
Q
Why is confabulation common in those with Korsakoff syndrome?
A
- Brain is trying to fill in the gaps because the person can’t even remember what they did.
23
Q
What’s a common symptom of TBIs?
A
- Time-dependent retrograde amnesia
- The worse the damage, the farther back in time the deficits go
24
Q
Prospective memory vs. destination memory?
A
- Prospective - memory for things that one intends to do (ex. keeping an appointment, attend class, taking medications)
- Destination - memory for our past interactions (ex. remembering who we’ve told a story to, highly tied to social communication)
25
What's childhood amnesia?
- Also called infantile amnesia
- The inability to recall episodic memories from the first 4 years
- Can also have a hard time recalling events from ages 7-11
- May be due to development (or lack thereof) of different memory systems
26
T/F: We tend to develop explicit memories in infancy before we develop implicit and emotional memories.
- FALSE
- Implicit and emotional come first.
27
What primary structures provide the neural substrate for explicit memories?
- Medial temporal lobe, prefrontal cortex, and other closely related structures
28
What's episodic memory? Why is it important?
- Memory of life experiences centred on the person themselves
- Provides us with autonoetic awareness (i.e., self-knowledge that allows us to bind together the awareness of ourselves as a continuous entity through time)
29
What brain regions are associated with autonoetic awareness?
- Uncinate fasciculus - a white matter tract that connects between the temporal lobe and the ventral frontal lobe
- Also runs through the insular cortex (this cortex is involved in emotional awareness)
- The UF fibres can be torn by shrewing of the hemispheres
30
Which side is semantic memory lateralized to?
- The left hemisphere
31
Which brain regions are involved in semantic memory?
- Posterior inferior parietal
- Fusiform gyrus
- Parahippocampal gyrus
- Posterior cingulate
- Middle temporal gyrus
- Ventromedial PFC
*Area are similar to those activated in the DMN
32
What two major regions make up the hippocampus?
1) Ammon's horn - made from pyramidal cells
2) Dentate gyrus - made from granule cells (smaller than pyramidal)
*Ammon's horn found slightly more dorsal
33
What major areas make up the hippocampal formation?
- Dentate gyrus (apart of hpc)
- Ammon's horn (apart of hpc)
- Subiculum (main output of hpc)
- Entorhinal cortex (main input of hpc)
34
Which two major pathways is the hpc reciprocally connected to the rest of the brain?
1) The perforant pathway - main "in" pathway, connects rest of cortex to hpc
2) The fimbria fornix - the main "out" pathway, connects hpc to subcortical structures (i.e., thalamus, hypothalamus, basal ganglia, PFC sometimes)
35
Where does the perforant pathway originate?
- The entorhinal cortex, then goes to the dentate gyrus
36
Where does the fimbria fornix originate?
- The subiculum, and then it can either go to the entorhinal cortex which would extend to the neocortex, or it can go to the fornix which would take it to different subcortical structures
37
What's Systems Consolidation Theory?
- Process by which memories, initially dependent on the hippocampus, are reorganized as time passes
- Info initially stored both in hpc and neocortex
- Hpc "converts" short-term memories into long-term memories, where they become permanently stored in the neocortex
38
What does the hypothetical model of hippocampal-neocortical interactions during memory consolidation show?
- When novel info is learned, there are many active connections found between the hpc and other cortical areas
- As time progresses (weeks) and memories consolidate, and the memories develop and consolidate independently of the hpc
- At this point, rats with the hpc lesions perform the same as the controls since memories are now consolidated in the cortex.
39
What deficits may be sustained when early and sustained hippocampal damage occurs?
- Difficulties in navigation (even familiar surroundings), object location memory, autonoetic awareness
- Episodic memory formation impaired, semantic largely intact
- Can do well in mainstream educational settings, language, and factual knowledge
40
What is the summary of the role of the hpc in memory?
- Memory consolidation
- Visuospatial memory
- Damage usually affects anterograde memory more than retrograde; episodic more than semantic
- Role in autonoetic awareness
41
How would damage to the perirhinal cortex affect a monkey's ability to perform a visual-recognition task?
- The perirhinal cortex is involved in ventral stream input, so it would have a hard time selecting the right object
42
How would damage to the parahippocampal cortex or just the hippocampus make it difficult for a monkey to perform an object-position task?
- Since the parahippocampal cortex is involved in dorsal stream input and receives input from the hpc.
- Monkey would have a hard time remembering the objects location in space
43
What would a right temporal lobe removal affect?
- Would lead to nonverbal impairments
- Memory for spatial position (i.e., the Corsi block-tapping test) facial recognition, and maze learning would all be affected
44
What would a left temporal lobe removal cause?
- Impairments in recalling word lists, consonant trigrams, and nonspatial associations
- Can assess deficits using the Hebb recurring digits test
45
Which brain regions provide the neural substrate for implicit memories?
- The neocortex, and the basal ganglia
- Then goes to the premotor to initiate movement
46
What's the neural circuit for emotional memory?
- Connections from either the basal ganglia (implicit) or medial temporal cortex (explicit) are sent to the amygdala, which is connected to the hypothalamus and the PAG, and then these are connected to the lobes and cingulate cortices
47
Which main lobe is involved in short-term memory?
- The frontal lobe, specifically the DLPFC
- All sensory systems project to the frontal lobe, where info can be kept temporarily
