Chapter 12 - Quiz 5 Flashcards
12.1: Localized Representations of Memory
What are the two types of learning? Who invented one of them?
-classical (Pavlov) and instrumental conditioning
-animals have specialized methods of learning beyond these two
12.1: Localized Representations of Memory
What is the basic premise of classical conditioning? What are the steps? (5)
-learning to associate a neutral stimulus with a meaningful stimulus, resulting in a new learned process
Steps:
1. The experimenter presents a conditioned stimulus first which is a neutral stimulus that eventually becomes meaningful once paired with the UCS. This is the bell.
2. Next they immediately present the unconditioned stimulus UCS. This is a stimulus that naturally and automatically triggers a response without any prior learning. This is the food.
3. This triggers the unconditioned response which is the salivation. UCR
4. After a while of pairing these two together the individual begins making a new, learned response to the CS called a conditioned response CR. This is the dog salivating to the sound of the bell.
12.1: Localized Representations of Memory
Explain what is instrumental conditioning.
-a response leads to a reinforcer or punishment where behavior is influenced by its consequences
-behaviors followed by a favorable consequence are more likely to be repeated than behaviors followed by unfavourable consequences
12.1: Localized Representations of Memory
What is a reinforcer and punishment? (2)
-reinforcer is any event that increases the future probability of the response
-punishment is an event that suppresses the frequency of the response
12.1: Localized Representations of Memory
Give an example of instrumental conditioning and explain the example with both reinforcer and punishment. (2)
-when a rat is going through a particular arm of a maze and find a treat they are more likely to enter that area in the future
-however, if they recieve an electric shock they are less likely
12.1: Localized Representations of Memory
Describe the differences between classical and instrumental conditioning. (2)
-in instrumental conditioning, the individual’s response determines the outcome
-wheras in classical conditioning, the conditioned stimulus which is the bell and the unconditioned stimulus which is the food occur independetly of the individual’s actions. The learnign process involces forming associations between these stimuli reather than between behaviors and consequences
12.1 Lashley’s search for the Engram
How did Pavlov believe classical conditioning worked in the brain?
-he believed it reflected a strengthened connection between a CS center (bell) and a UCS center (food) so when the CS was excited it would excite the UCS and the UCR automatically
-now we know this hypothesis does not fit all behavioral observations
12.1 Lashley’s search for the Engram
What is an engram?
-a physical representation of what has been learned
Chat GPT: a theoretical concept that refers to the physical or biochemical trace of memory within the brain. It’s the means by which memories are stored as biophysical or biochemical changes in the brain (and other neural tissue) in response to external stimuli
12.1 Lashley’s search for the Engram
What two experiments did Lashley complete to try to find the Engram? (2)
- Trained rats then made deep cuts in their cerebral cortices. However, no knife cut significantly impaired the rats’ performances.
- He also would try cutting out large portions of the cortex to see how well rats navigated the maze. He found that no particular cortical area impaired performance more than another.
12.1 Lashley’s search for the Engram
What are the two concepts Lashley theorized based on his experiments? (2)
-define the
-equipotentiality: all parts of the cortex contribute equally to complex behaviors such as learning, and any part of the cortex can substitute for any other
-mass action: the cortex works as a whole and more cortex is better
-however, these rest on assumptins. The first is that the cerebral cortex is the best or only place to search for an engram and that studying one example of learning is just as good as studying any other one
12.1 The Modern Search for the Engram
Describe Thompson’s experiment looking for the Engram and highlight the difference to Lashley’s. (3)
-looked in the cerebellum not the cerebral cortex
-studied classical conditioning of blinking to a puff of air in rabbits
-think of the chart that starts with a -> b-> c -> d. This thinking allowed him to precisely figure out which part of the brain was actually doing the learning, as if he stopped that part from working that the muscles wouldn’t respond but we would see evidence of the learning of the animal later
12.1 The Modern Search for the Engram
Which area of the brain did Thompson’s research identify as essential for learning?
-lateral interpositus nucleus (LIP)
12.1 The Modern Search for the Engram
How did Thompson know that LIP was the correct area where the learning was happening, not just an area after the learning? (2)
-while the LIP was suppressed, the training had no effect on the rabbit
-they tried suppressing the red nucleus an area that recieves input from the cerebellum and the rabbit did learn after the suppression of the red nucleus wore off showing that the learning did not require activity in the red nucleus or any area after it
12.1 The Modern Search for the Engram
What do people with damage to the cerebellum show when doing Thompson’s experiment?
-either no conditioned eyeblinks or only weak inaccurately timed ones
-damage to the cerebellum impairs learning only when a discrete response needs to be made with precise timing
12.1 Types of Memory: Short and Long-term memory
What two types of memory did Hebb propose? (2)
-short-term memory for events that have just occurred
-long-term memory of events from further back
12.1 Types of Memory: Short and Long-term memory
What three types of evidence support the idea that there is short and long-term memory? (3)
-you can remember a lot of information in long-term memory but very little in short term memory. For example, repeating a random number sequence would be challenging after a certain number of letters.
-short-term memory requires rehearsal. You can recall long-term memories you haven’t thought about in years
-once you have forgotten something from short-term memory it is lost but with long-term memory often a hint will allow you to remember something you’ve forgotten
12.1 Types of Memory: Short and Long-term memory
How did Hebb suggest short-term memories are held in our brains in a simple way?
-through a reverbrating circuit in which neuron A excites neuron B which excites neuron C with then reexcites neuron A.
12.1 Types of Memory: Short and Long-term memory
How did Hebb propose we make short-term memories into long-term ones?
-storing something in short-term memory for long enough makes it possible for the brain to consolidate it into long-term memory, presumably by building new synapses or other structural change
12.1: Our Changing views of consolidation
Does holding onto a memory for a long enough time automatically turn it into a permenant memory? Give an example with your answer. (2)
-no
-emotionally significant memories form quickly like if someone told you a snake was in the house you would remember that immediately but if you try to memorize flashcards those take a lot longer
-flashbulb memories are when you remember something before and after a major event happened
-also, your brain tags a weak new memory for later stabilization if a similar more important event soon follows
12.1 Working Memory
What does the term that Baddeley and Hitch introduced, working memory, refer to?
-the way we store information while we are working on it
12.1 Working Memory
What is a common test of working memory? Explain it. (2)
-delayed response task
-you look at a dot and light flashes in your periphery and later a beep sounds and once the beep sounds you look towards where the light flashed
-results show memory was distributed over many cells in an alternating pattern
12.1 Working Memory
How does the cortex store a working memory during a delay?
-Occasional bursts of gamma oscillations (45 to 100 Hz) occur in cells that responded to a stimulus, but the bursts alternate among cells instead of persisting throughout the delay in any one cell.
12.1 Korsakoff’s Syndrome
What is Korsakoff’s syndrome? What is it caused by? What does prolonged thiamine deficiency result in in the brain? (3)
-AKA Wernicke-Korsakoff
-brain damage caused by prolonged thiamine deficiency
-since the brain needs thiamine to metabolize glucose, going for long periods without vitamins such as in alcohilism will cause this
-loss of neurons throughout the brain, especially in the dorsomedial thalamus
12.1 Korsakoff’s Syndrome
What is a distinctive symptom of Korsakoff’s syndrome?
-confabulation: in which patients fill in memory gaps with guesses
-most likely to do this with questions about their own lives
12.1: Alzheimers
Discuss scientists findings on genes linked to Alzheimers. What is their finding for early vs. late-onset? (2)
-some genes have been linked to early-onset Alzheimers, a gene on chromosome 21
-however, many late-onset cases relate to epigenetic changes in certain genes
12.1 : Alzheimers
What are the two proteins that scientists propose cause Alzheimers? (2)
-amyloid-B
-tau protein
12.1: Alzheimers
Describe how amyloid-B is believed to result in Alzheimers? Start from where the protein goes, what it does and why that is damaging. (3)
-the genes controlling early-onset cause this protein to accumulate inside and outside neurons and spread from cell to cell
-this protein then damages axons and dendrites, decreases synaptic input and decreases plasticity
-these damaged axons cluster into plaques that damage the brain
-many researchers are not convinced that Amyloid-B is the sole causer of Alzheimers as many people have high levels of amyloid-B without alzheimers disease and vice versa
12.1 Alzheimers
How do scientists believe the tau protein causes Alzheimers? (3)
-this protein is in the intracellular support structure of axons
-high levels of amyloid-B cause more phosphate groups to attach to tau proteins
-the altered tau cannot bind to its usual targets within axons, so it starts spreading into the cell body and dendrites
-the altered tau is responsible for tangles, structures formed from degeneration within neurons
-the areas of cell damage in the brain correlate better with tau levels than with amyloid-B levels
12.1 Alzheimers
Is any drug highly effective for Alzheimer’s disease?
-no
12.1 Infant Amnesia
What is infant amnesia?
-when children, teens, and adults cannot recall memories from when they were a baby
12.1 Infant Amnesia
What do researchers believe causes infant amnesia?
-the formation of new neurons facilitates new learning, which displace the old learning in infants because there is only so many neurons in an infant
