Memory and Learning

Question 1

What is the difference between learning and memory?

Answer 1

Learning is obtaining information, memory is retaining information

Question 2

What is the difference between declarative memory and nondeclarative/implicit memory?

Answer 2

Declarative - facts/events

Nondeclarative - procedural, skills, habits

Question 3

What are the two types of memory loss?

Answer 3

Limited amnesia (some information we can’t recall) and dissociated amnesia (no known deficit in the patient)

Question 4

What are the two different timelines of amnesia?

Answer 4

Retrograde amnesia - forgetting things you know
Anterograde amnesia - inability to form new memories

Question 5

Is classical conditioning a declarative or nondeclarative memory?

Answer 5

Non-declarative/procedural

Question 6

What part of the brain is responsible for procedural skill memory?

Answer 6

The cerebellum

Question 7

What part of the brain is responsible for declarative memory?

Answer 7

Medial temporal lobe, diencephalon

Question 8

What part of the brain is responsible for skeletal nondeclarative conditioning?

Answer 8

The cerebellum

Question 9

What part of the brain is responsible for emotional condtioning?

Answer 9

The amygdala

Question 10

What are the three types of declarative memory?

Answer 10

Sensory, short term, long term

Question 11

What process leads from sensory memory to short term memory?

Answer 11

Attention

Question 12

What process leads from short term to long term memory?

Answer 12

Encoding/consolidation (influenced by repitition)

Question 13

How many pieces of information can the average person store in their working memory?

Answer 13

7

Question 14

Where is the working memory associated with in the brain and how was this tested?

Answer 14

The prefrontal cortex was found to be the part of the brain responsible for working memory by giving lesions to monkeys and giving them memory tasks

Question 15

Where does the brain light up when visual and spatial inputs need to be processed together or independently?

Answer 15

Independently focused on, the brain tends to be more active in the frontal cortex, but when associating the information at the same time, the visual processing center in the temporal lobe is active as well

Question 16

What task is used to screen problem solving dysfunction in frontal lobe patients?

Answer 16

Wisconsin card sorting task

Question 17

What is the idea of an engram?

Answer 17

A group of neurons that when all activated bring an idea to mind

Question 18

What did Lashley’s studies of maze learning provide information on? What is its main limitation?

Answer 18

Rats that had cortex lesions forgot optimal pathways, but the lesions were large and so there was no pinpointing of where on the cortex the pathway was stored and the incorrect conclusion was made that the entire cortex contributed equally to learning/memory

Question 19

What is the main idea that Hebb provided about synaptic plasticity?

Answer 19

That the increase in firing of the same pathways strengthen the pathway efficiency

Question 20

What are the models of learning already seen in the course?

Answer 20

LTP/LTD declarative memory

Bliss and Lomo electrical stimulation

Question 21

What are the two ways engrams can be engrained in the mind?

Answer 21

Repetition or a strongly intense event or emotional response

Question 22

What is the idea of co-activation in engram theory?

Answer 22

That seeing parts of an engram will activate connected engram neurons that activate the entire engram to give the idea.

Question 23

What is reverberation?

Answer 23

The idea that the cells of the engram are reciprocally interconnected ( back and forth information strengthening)

Question 24

What is the cell assembly idea?

Answer 24

The engram is consolidated by LTP and wire together by repeated simultaneous firing

Question 25

What part of the brain is very important for memory formation?

Answer 25

The hippocampus

Question 26

What are the roles of the cortical association areas and hippocampus and thalamus/hypothalamus in memory storage? What pathway does information take between the three areas?

Answer 26

The cortical association areas process the images to give information, which then travels through the parahippocampal and rhinal areas to the hippocampus where it is consolidated and stored, where it travels through the fornix to the thalamus/hypothalamus which may be involved in memory/physiological memory

Question 27

What is the Montreal procedure?

Answer 27

It is a surgical approach where the patient is conscious and gives feedback during brain stimulation to detect specific areas

Question 28

What lobe of the brain is proposed to be the one that contains most of the memory processing action (especially visual)?

Answer 28

The temporal lobes

Question 29

Who is patient HM?

Answer 29

It was a epileptic patient that had his hippocampus removed, who developed anterograde and partial retrograde amnesia (had no effect on personality or intelligence)

Question 30

What kinds of memory are impaired by hippocampus removal and what kind is preserved?

Answer 30

Declarative memory is lost but procedural memory is still gained

Question 31

Where in the brain is hypothesized to be responsible for priming and perceptual memory?

Answer 31

The neocortex

Question 32

Where in the brain is hypothesized to be for procedural memory?

Answer 32

The striatum

Question 33

Where in the brain is hypothesized to be for non-associative learning?

Answer 33

The reflex pathways

Question 34

What is a more recent study on engram distribution?

Answer 34

Fear was induced in animals and found the neurons that exhibited increased brain activity. It found that memory recall activated less neurons than memory encoding, and that many brain parts were involved in the memory coding/recall

Question 35

On the light activation of fear neurons of mice, which brain area caused the mouse to freeze?

Answer 35

Activation in the hippocampus and also the thalamus