Chapter 13

Question 1

Alzheimer’s Disease

Answer 1

Condition characterized by memory loss, confusion, depression, restlessness, hallucinations, delusions, sleeplessness and loss of appetite. 5% of people age 65-74 and 50% over 80. Amyloid-B accumulates inside and outside neurons, causing dendrite damage, decrease in synaptic input and decreased plasticity. Damaged dendrites accumulate into plaques and cerebral cortex, hippocampus and other areas atrophy.

Question 2

Amnesia

Answer 2

memory loss

Question 3

Amyloid-B

Answer 3

A protein that accumulates to higher than notmal levels in patients with Alzhaimer’s disease

Question 4

Anteretrograde amnesia

Answer 4

Inability to for memories for events that happened after brain damage

Question 5

AMPA receptor

Answer 5

a glutamate receptor that can respond to AMPA - when stimulated enables glutamate to stimulate nearby NMDA receptors also, allowing calcium into the cell where a series of changes potentialte the dendrite’s future responsiveness to glutamate at the AMPA receptor.

Question 6

associativity

Answer 6

a weak input paired with a stronger input enhances its later response

Question 7

BDNF

Answer 7

Brain derived neurotrophin factor - a neurotrophin similar to NGF

Question 8

cooperativity

Answer 8

tendency for nearly simultateous stimulation by 2 or more axons to produce long-term potentiation much more effectively than stimulation by just one

Question 9

classical conditioning

Answer 9

type of conditioning produced by the pairing of two stimuli, one of which evokes automatic response

Question 10

conditioned stimulus (CS)

Answer 10

Stimulus that evokes a particular response only after it has been paired with an unconditioned stimulus

Question 11

conditioned response (CR)

Answer 11

response evoked by a conditioned stimulus after it has been paired with an unconditioned stimulus

Question 12

confabulation

Answer 12

a distinctive symptom of Korsakoff’s syndrome in which patients fill in memory gaps with guesses

Question 13

consolidation

Answer 13

to strengthen a memory and make it more long lasting

Question 14

declarative memory

Answer 14

deliberate recal of information that one recognizes as memory (explicit memory)

Question 15

delayed matching-to-sample task

Answer 15

task in which an animal sees a sample object and then after a delay must choose an object that matches the sample

Question 16

delayed nonmatching-to-sample task

Answer 16

task in which an animal sees a sample object and then after a delay must choose an object that does not match the sample

Question 17

delayed response task

Answer 17

assignment in which an animal must respond on the basis of a signal that it remembers but that is no longer present

Question 18

engram

Answer 18

physical representation of what has been learned

Question 19

episodic memory

Answer 19

memories of a single personal event

Question 20

equipotentiality

Answer 20

concept that all parts of the cortex contribute equally to complex behaviours; any part of the cortex can substitute for any other

Question 21

explicit memory

Answer 21

deliberate recall of a memory that one recognizes as a memory (declarative memory)

Question 22

habituation

Answer 22

a decrease in response to a stimulus that is presented repeatedly and accompanied by no change in other stimuli

Question 23

Hebbian synapse

Answer 23

a synapse that increases in effectiveness beacuse of simultaneous activity in the pre- and postsynaptic neurons

Question 24

implicit memory

Answer 24

an influence of experience on behaviour, even if the influence is not recognized

Question 25

instrumental conditioning

Answer 25

(operant conditioning) a type of condition in which reinforcement or punishment changes the future probabilities of a given behaviour

Question 26

Korsakoff’s syndrome

Answer 26

(Wernicke-Korsakoff’s syndrome) brain damage caused by prolonged thymine deficiency, which causes an inability to metabolize glucose. Mostly in alcoholics. Causes loss or shrinkage of neurons, especially in dorsomedial thalamus (main source of input for prefrontal cortex).

Question 27

lateral interpositus nucleus (LIP)

Answer 27

a nucleus of the cerebellum that is essential for learning

Question 28

long-term memory

Answer 28

memory of events that occurred further back in time

Question 29

long-term depression

Answer 29

(LTD) a prolonged decrease in response at a synapse where the axons have been less active than certain other axons afferent to that neuron

Question 30

long-term potentiation

Answer 30

(LTP) phenomenon that when one or more axons connected to a dendrite bombard it with a rapid series of stimuli, some of the synapses become more responsive to new input of the same type for minutes, days or weeks

Question 31

mass action

Answer 31

concept that the cortex works as a whole and the more cortex, the better

Question 32

Morris water maze

Answer 32

a procedure used to test for spatial memory in nonhumans

Question 33

NMDA receptor

Answer 33

a glutamate receptor that can respond to drug NMDA. Response to glutamate depends on the degree of polarization across the membrane, as ion channels are usually blocked by Magnesium. When membrane depolarizes, magnesium leaves and sodiuma nd calcium rush in, facilitating changes that increase future responsiveness to glutamate at AMPA receptors.

Question 34

procedural memory

Answer 34

the development of motor skills and habits, a special kind of implicit memory

Question 35

punishment

Answer 35

an event that supresses frequency of the preceeding response

Question 36

radial maze

Answer 36

an apparatus used to test spatial memory in nonhumans

Question 37

retrograde transmitter

Answer 37

a transmitter released by a post synaptic cell that travels back to the presynaptic cell to modify it

Question 38

reconsolidation

Answer 38

restrengthening of a memory by a similar later experience

Question 39

reinforcer

Answer 39

any event that increases the future probability of the preceeding response

Question 40

retrograde amnesia

Answer 40

loss of memory for events that occurred before brain damage

Question 41

sensitization

Answer 41

an increase in response to mild stimuli as a result of exposure to more intense stimuli

Question 42

specificity

Answer 42

property that highly active synapses become strengthened and less active synapses do not

Question 43

semantic dementia

Answer 43

damage to anterior and inferior regions of temporal lobe experience semantic dementia - a loss of semantic memory

Question 44

short-term memory

Answer 44

memory of events that have just occurred

Question 45

tau protein

Answer 45

part of the intracellular support structure of axons - principally responsible for tangles (formed from degeneration within neurons). Works with amyloid-B in alzheimer’s.

Question 46

unconditioned response (UCR)

Answer 46

Response automatically evokes by an unconditioned stimulus

Question 47

unconditioned stimulus (UCS)

Answer 47

stimulus that automatically evokes an unconditioned response

Question 48

working memory

Answer 48

the way we store information while we are working with it