chapter 14 Flashcards
- Differentiate learning and memory
Learning: Change in an organism’s behavior as a result of experience
Memory: Ability to recall or recognize previous experience
- What is an engram?
Engram: A mental representation of a previous experience
-Corresponds to a physical change in the brain, most likely involving synapses
- What type of learning is fear conditioning? What benefit have we gained from experiments that use fear conditioning?
Fear Conditioning: An unpleasant but harmless stimulus is used to elicit an emotional response: fear
–> Pavlovian Conditioning: Learning procedure whereby a neutral stimulus such as a tone (CS) comes to elicit a response (CR) because of its repeated pairing with some event such as the delivery of food (UCS); also called CLASSICAL CONDITIONING or RESPONDENT CONDITIONING
–>CS+UCS —-> UCR; after several pairings:
CS —-> CR
Ex.: fear conditioning example
Eyeblink Conditioning:
-A tone (CS) is associated with a painless puff of air (UCS) to the participant’s eye
-Blinking is a normal reaction (UCR) to a puff of air
-Learning has occurred when blinking is a response to the CS alone (CR)
—>Because the CR in this experiment is emotional, and because circuits of the amygdala rather than the cerebellum mediate fear conditioning, we conclude that the amygdala is involved in this CR. Although eyeblink and fear conditioning are Pavlovian conditioning processes, different brain areas mediate learning.
- What type of learning was Thorndike’s puzzle box?
Thorndike’s puzzle box experiment is an example of OPERANT conditioning.
-This type of learning involves an animal or
person learning to associate a behavior with
its consequences.
–In the case of Thorndike’s cats, they
learned to press a lever to escape the box
and receive a reward (food), which is a
clear example of learning from the
consequences of their actions
- Can a patient with amnesia continue to learn skills and information?
Yes, Amnesic subjects also show improvement on the Gollin Figure Test, even though they do not recall having taken it.
-Gollin Figure Test: Participants are shown a
series of drawings in sequence, from least to
most clear, and asked to identify the image.
Most people must see several panels before
they can identify the image
—->On a retention test, participants identify
the image sooner, indicating some form
of memory for the image. (including
amnesic participants)
- Short vs long term memory
Short-term Memory: (few minutes) Sensor, motor, cognitive
-Information is held in memory only briefly, then discarded; involves the frontal lobes
Long-term Memory: (indefinite duration)
-Information is held in memory indefinitely, perhaps for a lifetime; involves the temporal lobe
- Be able to recreate and describe the components of memory (LTM, STM, implicit, explicit, etc)
Short-term Memory: (few minutes) Sensor, motor, cognitive
-Information is held in memory only briefly, then discarded; involves the frontal lobes
Long-term Memory: (indefinite duration)
-Information is held in memory indefinitely, perhaps for a lifetime; involves the temporal lobe
-Explicit Memory: (Conscious)
–> Episodic: Personal, Autobiographical
–> Semantic: Facts, Knowledge
-Implicit Memory: (Unconscious) Skills, Habits, Priming, Conditioning
-Emotional Memory: (Conscious and Unconscious) Attraction, Avoidance, Fear
- Where are memories stored?
Hippocampus needed for consolidation, but is not the location where memories are stored.
Memories thought to be stored in the cortex
Storing Memories:
-Information from different sensory
modalities (e.g., vision, audition) is processed
and stored in other neural areas.
-Not all regions are active at once when a
semantic memory is stored. Still, subregions
are likely to be relatively specialized for
specific object characteristics (such as color
or shape) or types of knowledge (such as
names or places).
- What are some other structures we discussed that are critical to memory formation?
-Hippocampal injury is also associated with
poor episodic memory
-Because Parkinson disease primarily affects
the basal ganglia, J. K.’s deficit in implicit
memory was probably related to his basal
ganglia dysfunction.
- What is HSAM? Are these individuals still susceptible to false memories?
Highly Superior Autobiographical Memory (HSAM): People display virtually complete recall for events in their lives, usually beginning around age 10
-Many can describe any episode, including the day of the week and the date
-Areas likely as other participants to develop false memories
-Show superior personal memories but not superior cognitive functioning
- What is spatial memory? Which structure may be most important for this skill?
Visuospatial Memory:
-Using visual information to identify an object’s location in space
-Laboratory animals and human patients with selective hippocampal injury have severe deficits in various forms of spatial memory
-Animals (including humans) with especially good spatial memory should have bigger hippocampi than species with poorer spatial memories
–> Monkeys with hippocampal lesions have
difficulty learning the location of objects
–>Visualrecognition task; object-position
task
-The hippocampal formation in food-storing birds and rodents is larger than that of birds who are not food cachers. And rodents that do not store food.
-Posterior region of the hippocampus in London taxi drivers is significantly larger than the same region in the control participants.
- Which structures are important for emotional memory? Explain the role of these structures in emotional memory?
Emotional Memory: Memory for the affective properties of stimuli or events
-Can be implicit or explicit
-Amygdala is critical for emotional memory.
–Damage to the amygdala abolishes
emotional memory but has little effect on
implicit or explicit memory.
Amygdala: Has close connections with medial temporal cortical structures and the rest of the cortex.
-Sends projections to:
–Brainstem structures that control
autonomic responses such as blood
pressure and heart rate
–The hypothalamus, which controls
hormonal systems
–Periaqueductal gray matter (PAG), which
affects pain perception
–The basal ganglia to tap into the implicit
memory system
- What changes relate to memory formation or deletion at the synaptic level? At the DNA level?
At the neural level, memory is associated with changes at the synapse.
-The synapse is where one neuron influences
another neuron
Long-Term Potentiation (LTP): An increase in synaptic strength following high-frequency stimulation of a synapse.
-This is crucial for learning and memory
formation
Long-Term Depression (LTD): A decrease in synaptic strength following low-frequency stimulation.
-This helps in memory deletion or forgetting
Structural Changes: The number and shape of synapses can change.
-For example, the formation of new dendritic spines (small protrusions on neurons) is associated with memory formation
Neurotransmitter Release: Changes in the amount of neurotransmitters released and the sensitivity of receptors on the post-synaptic neuron can affect synaptic strength
- Would LTP be more related to sensitization or habituation? What about LTD?
Long-term potentiation(LTP) = stronger synapse
-Storing of memories
-In response to stimulation at a synapse,
changed amplitude of an excitatory
postsynaptic potential lasts for hours to days
or longer
LTP is more closely related to sensitization
-Sensitization involves an increased response
to a stimulus following repeated exposure
-LTP involves synaptic connections
strengthening, leading to enhanced signal
transmission between neurons. this is crucial
for learning and memory making it similar to
the way sensitization increases
responsiveness to stimuli
Long-term depression (LTD) = weaker
synapse
-Forgetting
-Low-frequency stimulation produced a
decrease in EPSP size.
LTD is more like habituation
-Habituation is the process where an
organism becomes less responsive to a
repeated stimulus
-LTD involves a long-lasting decrease in
synaptic strength, which can lead to a
reduced response to stimuli over time
- Describe the process of activating NMDA receptors. What is the functional result of activating NMDA receptors?
Two events must occur together or rapidly for NMDA receptors to open:
- Depolarization of postsynaptic membrane,
which displaces Mg2+ from pore (strong
electrical stimulus) - Activation by glutamate from the
presynaptic neuron (weak electrical
stimulation)
Strong and weak stimuli have been paired.
Activation of NMDA receptors results in the opening of the ion channel
