Learning and Memory

Question 1

Explain Von Bechterew’s work

Answer 1

Worked with patients with marked memory impairments.
Marked softening of temporal lobe that correlated with memory function.

Question 2

Explain case of patient HM

Answer 2

Had severe epilepsy that left him unable to work and was not controllable by drugs.
Medial Temporal Lobe = source of seizures. Had surgery to remove it in hopes to stop seizures.

Question 3

What are patient HM’s memory impairments?

Answer 3

Severe Anterograde amnesia
Impaired non-verbal short-term memory.

Question 4

What parts of HM’s memory was still intact?

Answer 4

Intact working/ short-term memory.
Normal digit span for remembering numbers.
Rate of forgetting was within normal range.
Intact procedural memory - could learn new motor tasks.

Question 5

What role does Perirhinal cortex play in memory?

Answer 5

Recognition memory

Perception

Helps identify objects

Associates objects with other objects and with abstractions.

Question 6

What role does hippocampus play in memory?

Answer 6

Involved in organisation and storage of new memories

Strengthens memory by connecting sensations and emotions to them

Holds short-term memories and transfers them to long-term memory.

Associated with emotional processing

Important for spatial processing and navigation.

Question 7

What did Maguire’s experiment into hippocampus size conclude?

Answer 7

Taxi drivers displayed experience-related changes in the size of their hippocampus.

Their posterior hippocampus is larger and anterior is smaller.

Longer spent as a taxi driver, the larger the posterior hippocampus.

Question 8

What causes memory deficits that is related to hippocampus?

Answer 8

Damage to Mammillary bodies and Anterior Thalamus.

Question 9

What is Procedural memory?

Answer 9

Doing. Unconscious learning and retention of skills, habits and actions. Acquisition of motor skills etc.

Question 10

What is Declarative memory?

Answer 10

Conscious recall of facts, events and knowledge about the world. Storage and retrieval of info such as personal experiences or historical dates.

Question 11

What are the main differences between procedural and declarative memory?

Answer 11

Recall:
D - Consciously recalled
P - Automatically received/ unconscious

Encoding:
D - Semanic
P - Procedural

Storage:
D - hippocampus, distributed throughout neocortex
P - basal ganglia, cerebellum and motor cortex

Flexibility:
D - highly flexible and easily modified
P - resistant to forgetting and persists over time