13.1.3 Learning, Memory, Amnesia, And Brain Functioning 4 Flashcards
Another cause of memory loss is ____ ____.
Alzheimer’s disease
Alzheimer’s patients have better procedural than ____ ____. They learn new skills but then surprise themselves with their good performance because don’t remember doing it before.
declarative memory
Alzheimer’s patients memory and alertness vary substantially from time to time, suggesting that many of their problems result from ____ neurons, rather then the death of neurons.
malfunctioning
Increased arousal improves memory, and people who drink 3 to 5 cups of ____ per day are less likely than average to develop Alzheimer’s.
coffee
Al signers disease gradually progresses to more serious memory loss, confusion, depression, restlessness, hallucinations, delusions, sleeplessness, and _______.
loss of appetite
Alzheimer’s occasionally strikes people younger than age 40 but becomes more common with age, affecting almost 5% of people between ages ______ and almost 50% of people over 85.
65 and 74
The first major clue to the cause of Alzheimer’s was the fact that people with ____ ____ (a type of mental retardation) almost invariably get Alzheimer’s disease if they survive into middle age.
down syndrome
People with Down syndrome have three copies of ____ __ rather than the usual two. The fact lead investigators to examine chromosome 21, where they found a gene linked to many cases of early-onset Alzheimer’s disease.
chromosome 21
About half of all patients with late-onset Alzheimer’s disease have no known ____ with the disease.
relatives
Although genes do not completely control Alzheimer’s disease, understanding the genes sheds light on the disease itself. The gene controlling early-onset Alzheimer’s disease cause a protein called _____ to accumulate both inside and outside neurons.
amyloid-B
The effect of amyloid-B varies among cells, but the net effect is to damage dendritic spines, decrease synaptic input, and ____ ____.
decrease plasticity
As amyloid damages axons and dendrites, the damaged structures cluster into structures called ____. As the plaques accumulate, the cerebral cortex, hippocampus, and other areas ____ (waste away).
plaques : atrophy
In addition to amyloid-B, the second problem relates to the ___ ____ in the intracellular support structure of axons.
tau protein
High levels of amyloid-B cause more phosphate groups to attach to tau proteins. The altered tau can’t ____ to its usual targets within axons, and so it starts spreading into the cell body and dendrites.
bind
The attack of tau from within dendrites adds to the attack by amyloid-B, magnifying the damage. Researchers hypothesise that altered tau also increases the production of amyloid-B, causing a ____ ____.
vicious cycle
At this point, no ____ is highly affective for Alzheimer’s disease.
drug
The most common treatment is to give drugs that stimulate acetylcholine receptors or prolong acetylcholine release. The result is increased ____.
arousal
An interesting possibility is ____, a component of tumeric, a spice in Indian curries. Research with animals shows that ____ inhibits amyloid-B deposits and phosphate attachment to tau proteins.
curcumin
The study of patients with amnesia reveals that people do not lose all aspects of memory ____. A patient with great difficulty establishing new memories may remember events from long ago, and someone with greatly impaired factual memory may learn new skills.
equally
Ordinarily, when most of us recall an event, one thing reminds us of another, and we start adding one detail after another, until we have said all that we know. In people with ____ ____ damage, that process of associating one-piece with another this impaired.
parietal lobe
People with damage in the anterior and inferior regions of the temporal lobe suffer ____ ____, a loss of semantic memory.
semantic dementia
Such patience with semantic dementia cannot remember the typical colour of common fruit and vegetables or the _____ of various animals.
appearance
Serious deficits in semantic memory occur only after bilateral damage. People with damage to the temple cortex in just ___ ____ perform approximately normally.
one hemisphere
Parts of the ____ ____ are important for learning about rewards and punishments.
prefrontal cortex
If you are confronted with an opportunity to make a response, cells in the ventromedial prefrontal cortex respond based on the ____ to be expected, based on past experience.
reward
Cells in the ____ cortex respond based on how that reward compares to other possible choices.
orbitofrontal
Cells and the orbitofrontal cortex and also important for ____. If the orbitofrontal cortex is the temporary inactivated, you become more likely to take immediate rewards.
self-control
