Berryhill: Memory

Question 1

What are the two components of declarative memory?

Answer 1

episodic

semantic

Question 2

What can a memory be acquainted to?

Answer 2

a painting

Question 3

What is episodic memory?

Answer 3

memory of events (i.e. graduation day)

Question 4

What is semantic memory?

Answer 4

memory of facts (i.e. knowledge about the world)

Question 5

What is non-declarative memory?

Answer 5

non-declarative is how we remember behaviors on autopilot (i.e. “short cuts” that allow us to go through life without having to make major decisions every instant)

Question 6

What type of memory is like the “executive function?”

Answer 6

working memory

Question 7

With working memory, how long can we maintain information? How many items can we remember at one time?

Answer 7

for ~30sec; ~4 items at one time

Question 8

Also referred to as autobiographical memory

Answer 8

episodic long term memory

Question 9

During what time in life do we remember the most? During what time in our life do we remember the least?

Answer 9

the most: b/w ages 16-20ish because there are many primary moments that occur during this time (i.e. graduation, getting married, etc)
the least: during childhood

Question 10

After about age 65, what happens to memory?

Answer 10

increase in ability to recall recent events

Question 11

What explains childhood amnesia?

Answer 11

children don’t have a large vocabulary, so they will generally not remember items that they do not have a name for (ex: the incredible shrinking machine - children will remember that a ball was involved, but will forget about the xylophone)

Question 12

Emotional memory (like a fearful memory) is associated w what structure in the brain?

Answer 12

amygdala

Question 13

So what happened in the case w Sue, in which she had bilateral amygdala damage?

Answer 13

Sue had no conditioned fear response. She “laughed” in the face of danger, because she was unable to store memories of the fear that was felt during past ominous events.

Question 14

What are these?

Personal memories of surprising events

Answer 14

flashbulb memories

Question 15

Are people more confident OR accurate in their flashbulb memories?

Answer 15

more confident, less accurate

Question 16

T/F: When you have high confidence in something you are saying vs having low confidence in something you are saying, different areas of the cortex are activated.

Answer 16

True

Question 17

What does inferior parietal lobe damage cause?

Answer 17

bizarre deficits in memory *particularly in determining whether an event happened to you or to someone you know or read about

Question 18

T/F: Recalling a past event and anticipating a future event activates similar areas of cortex (medial prefrontal and parietal lobe).

Answer 18

True

Question 19

HM was a fellow with bilateral medial temporal lobe damage. What were his symptoms?

Answer 19

HM could not form new episodic memories. Every day, the people working w him had to reintroduce themselves. However, he had normal distant long term memory, semantic memory, procedural memory, and priming.

Question 20

If you take out the medial temporal lobe, you get amnesia. Is it retrograde or anterograde?

Answer 20

Mostly anterograde (can’t form NEW memories), but you also may lose a year or so of retrograde memory

Question 21

Caused by chronic alcohol abuse (Vit B1 deficiency)
Leads to damage of mammillary bodies
Causes confabulation (fabricated/distorted memories)

Answer 21

Korsakoff’s Syndrome

Question 22

This disease can also cause diminished mamillary bodies

Answer 22

obstructive sleep apnea

Question 23

What type of memory loss does Alzheimer’s disease produce?

Answer 23

anterograde (can’t form new memories)

also has a retrograde component as the disease progresses

Question 24

What’s this?
caused by herpes simplex virus
intense hemorrhagic necrosis of the affected tissue (often in the MTL)
serious neurologic deficits, amnesia, global dementia

Answer 24

herpes encephalitis

Question 25

T/F: Animal models have demonstrated that there are place cells, direction cells, and grid cells, which are activated by where you are in space, what direction you are facing, etc. These are involved in spatial processing.

Answer 25

True

Question 26

What was the deal w taxi cab drivers and their posterior hippocampus?

Answer 26

the longer the subject had been a taxi driver, the larger their POSTERIOR hippocampus (this suggests that the posterior hippocampus is like a volume store of navigational memory)

*side note, those w more driving experience had smaller ANTERIOR hippocampus(es)…

Question 27

Is the hippocampus like a hub for memory? Or does it “point to” the neurons necessary to retrieve info?

Answer 27

The hippocampus is NOT what stores memories, but “points” to the neurons necessary to retrieve them

Think about it like this: when you think of frogs, must reactivate parts of the brain that activate “green” and activate “frog like shape.” The hippocampus coordinates all of this and creates memory.

Question 28

What is semantic dementia?

Answer 28

Losing the detail about facts over time (i.e. 1990 “That’s a chicken” … 1993 “That’s a… bird” …1996 “…that is an animal for sure!”)

Question 29

What lobe is responsible for the following:
Receives processed info from cortical regions
Returns projections to these same cortical regions
Controls reorganization in the cortex
Binds info together from multiple geographically separate cortical regions

Answer 29

medial temporal lobe

Question 30

What's this:
procedural memory (skills, habits, behaviors)

Answer 30

implicit memory

Question 31

Classical conditioning is a form of (blank) memory

Answer 31

implicit

Question 32

What is priming?

Answer 32

When you show someone a sketch of a partially drawn camel (“What is that!?”) they will be faster to identify a fully drawn picture of a camel (“That is a camel!”)

Question 33

What type of reward interval makes it most difficult to extinguish a conditioned response?

Answer 33

variable ratio *unpredictable

think of gambling…. when you win spontaneously, it is harder to break the habit of gambling

Question 34

What test is this?
A tool that can be used to assess mental status. It is an 11-question measure that tests five areas of cognitive function: orientation, registration, attention and calculation, recall, and language. The maximum score is 30. A score of 23 or lower is indicative of cognitive impairment. The MMSE takes 5-10 minutes to administer and is practical to use repeatedly and routinely.

Answer 34

MMSE

Question 35

What test is this?

combines a 3-item recall test with a clock-drawing test (CDT)

Answer 35

mini-cog assessment

Question 36

What type of memory includes procedural, priming and perceptual learning, simple classical conditioning, and non-associative learning?

Answer 36

non-declarative (implicit)