Attention and Memory Lecture Flashcards
Define Attention and its components?
A global cognitive process encompassing many sensory modalities.
Consists of;
Arousal (wakefullness)
Vigilance (maintaining attention for a period of time)
Divided Attention (focusing on more than one task)
Selective Attention (focus on one stimuli while ignoring competing stimuli).
What would result from a breakdown in global attention e.g. Delirium?
Impaired arousal - drowsy
Impaired vigilance - impersistence
Impaired attentions - distractible
What would result from a breakdown of domain-specific attention e.g. stroke?
Could get visual inattention, sensory inattention or neglect.
What controls cortical top down modulation?
Prefrontal cortex, parietal cortex and limbic cortex.
What would result from disrupted top down modulation?
Innattention and neglect
What controls bottom up modulation?
The Ascending Reticular Activating System - which consists of;
Brain stem nuclei
Thalamic Nuclei
Cortex
This acts as a filter to ignore unimportant stimuli.
What would result from disorders of bottom up modulation?
Impaired attention, neurodegenerative disorders, drowsiness, metabolic disorders as neurotransmitters are affected.
What 2 types of memory is there?
Working and long-term
What types of long term memory are there? Describe them.
Explicit - delcarative
Implicit - Procedural
What types of explicit memory are there? Describe them.
Episodic - available to conciousness, personal experiences.
Semantic - Factual information such as general knowledge and vocabulary
What types of implicit memory are there?
Motor skills
Chronic condiitoning
How is knowledge of episodic memory derived?
From patients with focal lesions
What parts of the brain are involved in episodic memory?
Limbic system
- Medial temporal lobe: Hippocampus and Enterhinal cortex.
- Diencephlon: Mamillary bodies and thalamic nuclei.
Regulated by higher cortical centres - DL prefrontal cortex (which organises memories).
Name components of the limbic system?
Cingulate gyrus Hippocampus Fornix Amygala Orbital and prefrontal cortex Mamillary bodies
What would occur from acute loss of episodic memory? Why would this happen?
In Transient global amnesia due to emotional or physiologcal stress - Like dory… but returns after a few hours.
