Memory

Question 1

Patient HM findings

Answer 1

-amnesia spares short-term and working memory,
-amnesia is an impairment of declarative and episodic memory
-the hippocampus is a core brain structure supporting memory
-the hippocampus supports the permanent consolidation of memories.
PROCEDURAL MEMORY REMAINED INTACT

Question 2

Retrograde amnesia

Answer 2

impairment of memories created prior to injury

Question 3

Anterograde amnesia

Answer 3

impairment of memories created after injury/ learning new information

Question 4

Amygdala

Answer 4

-Key role in supporting memory for emotionally arousing experiences e.g- classical fear conditioning
-Lesions result in loss of conditioned fear and impairment of new fear learning/ reduced memory for emotionally laden events

Question 5

Frontal lobes and memory

Answer 5

-Frontal lobes are involved in memory encoding and retrieval strategies
-Lesions cause impairments in remembering contextual details (source of information, chronological order of memories)
-Frontal lobe damage can result in confabulation (production of statements involving bizarre distortions of memory).

Question 6

Long term potentiation

Answer 6

-LTP changes the efficacy of the synapse
Increasing or decreasing
 The amount of neurotransmitter released
 The number of receptors in the post-synaptic membrane
-Also alters protein synthesis in post-synaptic dendrites

Question 7

Biology of Alzheimer’s disease

Answer 7

-Proteinopathy + amyloid-mediated tauopathy
1. Sporadic, late onset: failure of clearance of AB
2. Familial (extraordinarily rare): overproduction of AB
3. Environmental factors moderate symptoms onset

Question 8

The amyloid hypothesis

Answer 8

Aβ + tau → synaptic dysfunction → cell loss → cognitive decline/dementia