Articles

Question 1

The Cognitive Neuroscience of Human Memory Since H.M.

Larry R. Squire and John T. Wixted, 2011

Answer 1

• The important structures proved to be the hippocampus and the adjacent entorhinal, perirhinal, and parahippocampal cortices, which make up much of the parahippocampal gyrus.
• First, damage to the hippocampus itself is sufficient to produce a clinically significant and readily detectable memory impairment. Second, additional damage to the adjacent cortical regions along the parahippocampal gyrus (as in H.M.) greatly exacerbates the memory impairment.
• Four priciples:
• 1) Memory is not a single thing: motor skill (procedural, unconscious) vs. declarative memory (conscious)
• 2) Memory and intelligence are separate: HM might be able to get a normal score on WAIS, but could not perform memroy subtests.
• 3) Immediate and long-term memroy are separate: long-term memroy (declarative memory) vs. procedural memroy vs. immediate (working memory)
• 4) Permanent memory might be stored in neocortex.
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Question 2

The return of Phineas Gage: clues about the brain from the skull of a famous patient.

Hanna Damasio, Thomas Grabowski, Randall Frank, Albert M. Galaburda and Antonio R. Damasio, 1994

Answer 2

• Personality change
• Left and right prefrontal cortices demage
• Cause a deficit in rational decision making and the processing of emotion. Lacks inhibition, organization abilities.
• Intact intelligence, motor skills, speech, and memory.
• This region (ventromedial frontal region) is reciprocally connected with subcortical nuclei that control basic biological regulation, emotional processing, and social cognition and behavior, for instance, in amygdala and hypothalamus
• The frontal neurons in any of those regions may be involved with attention, working memory, and the categorization of contingent relationships regardless of the domain.

Question 3

Paying attention to reading: The neurobiology of reading and dyslexia

SALLY E. SHAYWITZ AND BENNETT A. SHAYWITZ

2008

Answer 3

Preliminary studies suggest that agents traditionally used to treat disorders of attention, particularly attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, may prove to be an effective adjunct to improving reading in dyslexic students