Chapter 14

Question 1

What is learning?

Answer 1

a relatively permanent change in an organism’s behaviour as a result of experience that leads to the acquisition of new understanding, behaviours, knowledge, attitudes, and skills

Question 2

What is memory?

Answer 2

the ability to recall or recognize previous experience

Question 3

What is engram?

Answer 3

physical representation of learning and memory in the brain

Question 4

What are two methods to train animals for animal studies?

Answer 4

• pavlovian conditioning
• operant conditioning

Question 5

What is Pavlovian conditioning?

Answer 5

learning achieved when a neutral stimulus comes to elicit a response after its repeated pairing with some event

Question 6

What is eyeblink conditioning?

Answer 6

experimental technique in which subjects learn to pair a formerly neutral stimulus with a defensive blinking response

Question 7

What is fear conditioning?

Answer 7

conditioned emotional response between a neutral stimulus and an unpleasant event that results in a learned association

Question 8

What is operant conditioning?

Answer 8

learning procedure in which the consequence of a particular behaviour increases or decreases the probability of the behaviour occurring again

Question 9

What are the two categories of memory?

Answer 9

implicit and explicit

Question 10

What is implicit memory?

Answer 10

unconscious memory; includes skills, conditioned responses, or recall of events, upon prompting that is not intentional

Question 11

What is explicit memory?

Answer 11

conscious memory: subjects can retrieve an item and indicate that they know the retrieved item is the correct one

Question 12

Where is memory stored in the brain?

Answer 12

memory is not localized to any particular circuit or region but multiple memory circuits vary with the requirements of the memory task

Question 13

What is declarative memory?

Answer 13

ability to recount what one knows, by detailing the time, place, and circumstances of events; often lost in amnesia; explicit

Question 14

What is procedural memory?

Answer 14

ability to recall a movement sequence or how to perform some act or behaviour; implicit

Question 15

What makes explicit and implicit memory different?

Answer 15

• the set of neural structures that house each type of memory is different
• the brain processes explicit and implicit information differently

Question 16

What is encoding?

Answer 16

a process where information is changed into a form that can be stored in the brain

Question 17

What is Semantic encoding?

Answer 17

the storage of input that has a particular meaning and becomes part of one’s knowledge of the world

Question 18

How is implicit information encoded?

Answer 18

date driven/bottom up

Question 19

How is explicit information encoded?

Answer 19

conceptually driven/top-down

Question 20

What does short-term memory involve?

Answer 20

frontal lobes

Question 21

What does long-term memory involve?

Answer 21

temporal lobe

Question 22

What are the categories of memory?

Answer 22

short-term memory
long-term memory:
- explicit
- implicit
- emotional

Question 23

What is priming?

Answer 23

sensitizes the brain to later presentation of same of similar stimulus

Question 24

What is episodic memory?

Answer 24

autobiographical memory for events pegged to specific place and time contexts

Question 25

Where are autobiographical memories stored in the brain?

Answer 25

- ventromedial cortex - hippocampus

Question 26

What would happen if you lost you personal memories?

Answer 26

i would recall but don't know what role i play in them

Question 27

What are the two subtypes of explicit memory?

Answer 27

- semantic: facts, knowledge - episodic: experience, autobiographical

Question 28

What is impaired when you have amnesia?

Answer 28

explicit memory

Question 29

What are the main structures involved in explicit memory?

Answer 29

hippocampus and neocortex

Question 30

What are the main medial temporal areas involved in explicit memory?

Answer 30

- entorhinal cortex - parahippocampal cortex - perihinal cortex

Question 31

Why are reciprocal connections to the prefrontal cortex of explicit memory circuits important?

Answer 31

- maintain sense of experience after it passes (short-term memory) - maintains conscious awareness of medial temporal love functions

Question 32

What is retrograde amnesia?

Answer 32

inability to remember events that took place before the onset of amnesia

Question 33

What is anterograde amnesia?

Answer 33

inability to remember events subsequent to a disturbance of the brain such as head trauma, electroconvulsive shock or neurodegenerative disease

Question 34

What is consolidation?

Answer 34

process of stabilizing a memory trace after learning (hippocampus)

Question 35

What is the hippocampus' role in explicit memory?

Answer 35

visuospatial navigation and recognition of object's place

Question 36

What are the different classes of spatial cells?

Answer 36

- place cells - head direction cell - grid cell

Question 37

What is the distributed reinstatement theory?

Answer 37

memory stores strengthened outside hippocampus through repetition

Question 38

What is reconsolidation?

Answer 38

process of restabilizing a memory trace after the memory is visited

Question 39

What is trace transformation theory?

Answer 39

perceptual features of events are richly represented in the posterior hippocampus

Question 40

What is the hallmark feature of Alzheimer's Disease?

Answer 40

memory decline but only definitively diagnosed at autopsy - neurons no longer communicate and brain shrinks

Question 41

What are the principal neuronal changes that take place in Alzheimer disease?

Answer 41

- loss of cholinergic cells in the basal forebrain - development of neuritic plaques and tangles in the cerebral cortex

Question 42

What is an important structure involved in implicit memory?

Answer 42

basal ganglia

Question 43

What is emotional memory?

Answer 43

memory for the affective properties of stimuli or events

Question 44

What is memory distortion?

Answer 44

memory is malleable so because memories are reconstructive they are susceptible to being manipulated by false information

Question 45

What type of memory does emotional memory involve?

Answer 45

both explicit and implicit memory

Question 46

What is the main brain structure involved with emotional memory?

Answer 46

Amygdala

Question 47

Why do we remember emotionally arousing experiences so vividly?

Answer 47

emotional experiences stimulate hormonal and neurochemical activating systems that stimulate the amygdala and the amygdala modulates the laying down memory circuits in the rest of the brain

Question 48

How does the brain have the capacity to change?

Answer 48

- modifying synaptic connections (long-term potentiation) - forming novel neural circuits (new connections or new neurons)

Question 49

What are the moderators of plasticity?

Answer 49

- epigenetics - hormones - neurotrophic factors - psychoactive drugs

Question 50

What has learning complex spatial information been linked to?

Answer 50

increased gray matter in the hippocampus

Question 51

What is behavioural sensitization?

Answer 51

the progressive increase in behavioural actions in response to repeated administration of a drug

Question 52

How are epigenetics involved in plasticity?

Answer 52

neurons involved in a memory trace can by methylated/non-methylated

Question 53

How are hormones involved in plasticity?

Answer 53

induce changes in synaptic structure

Question 54

How are neurotrophic factors involved in plasticity?

Answer 54

nerve growth factor: stimulates dendritic and synapse growth

Question 55

How are psychoactive drugs involved in plasticity?

Answer 55

drug-induced behavioural sensitization

Question 56

What part of the brain participates in species-typical behaviours, emotion and emotional memory?

Answer 56

amygdala

Question 57

What is habituation?

Answer 57

the process by which the response to a stimulus weakens with repeated exposure

Question 58

What is long-term potentation?

Answer 58

repeated high-frequency stimulation of excitatory neurons

Question 59

How can endogenous stem cells be recruited to enhance functional improvement?

Answer 59

epidermal growth factor

Question 60

What are effects of aging on memory?

Answer 60

- loss of synapses and NMDA receptors in hippocampus - white matter loss in prefrontal cortex

Question 61

What are three ways to compensate for the loss of neurons?

Answer 61

- learning new ways to solve problems - reorganizing to do more with less - replacing lost new neurons

Question 62

What are two methods of using electrical stimulation to enhance postinjury recovery?

Answer 62

direct cortical stimulation and deep brain stimulation

Question 63

What are learning and memory strategies?

Answer 63

- frequent repetition, rehearsal - associative techniques - deeper level processing - increase motivation - enhance attention - timing - manage stress and anxiety

Question 64

How can we improve our memory?

Answer 64

encoding -> storage -> retrieval

Question 65

What system are emotions most associated with?

Answer 65

limbic system