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PSY260: Learning and Plasticity > Chapter 2: Neuroscience of Learning and Memory > Flashcards

Chapter 2: Neuroscience of Learning and Memory Flashcards

1
Q

Describe the case of Louise Owens.

A

She has highly superior autobiographical memory. As it turns out, people like this have a larger temporal lobe and a larger basal ganglia (similar to people with OCD). They tend to compartmentalize their autobiographical events.

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2
Q

How did researchers find the brain area that was getting activated in HSAM people?

A

They measured activity as autobiographical activation - semantic activation.

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3
Q

Where was most brain activity of HSAM people when they remembered things about their life?

A

Prefrontal cortex, hippocampus and junction of frontal and parietal lobes.

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4
Q

What is the main function of the PNS?

A

Transferring energy from one form to another (heat/pressure/chemical energy to electrical signals)

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5
Q

What is the main function of the CNS?

A

Processes information and generates a behavior plan

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6
Q

Which lobes have the most clear division? (2)

A

frontal and parietal lobe, frontal and temporal lobe

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7
Q

What is the cortex?

A

most recently developed, outer layer of the brain

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8
Q

What is the frontal cortex responsible for?

A

Planning and performing complex actions.

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9
Q

What is the parietal complex responsible for?

A

Touch, feeling, sense of space. Somatosensory cortex is here.

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10
Q

What is the occipital cortex responsible for?

A

Vision

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11
Q

What is the temporal cortex responsible for?

A

Language, hearing and memory (hippocampus is here)

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12
Q

What is the cerebellum responsible for?

A

Automatic function (little brain), motor control and coordination

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13
Q

What does the brain stem do?

A

Completes many basic physiological functions like breathing and digestion.

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14
Q

Name all the subcortical structures (5). First four are important to learning and memory.

A

Thalamus, Amygdala, Basal ganglia, Hippocampus, Corpus Collosum

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15
Q

What does the Thalamus do?

A

Relays sensory information to the brain

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16
Q

What does the Corpus Collosum do?

A

C-structure wrapping around thalamus, connects right and left hemisphere

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17
Q

What does the Basal Ganglia do?

A

Group of subcortical nuclei - (planning and production of skilled movements).

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18
Q

What does the hippocampus do?

A

Learning new facts, navigation, autobiographical memories

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19
Q

What does the Amygdala do?

A

Emotional memories + arousal.

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20
Q

What is the cerebral cortex?

A

Very thin layer of cells on the outer surface of brain, many voluntary behaviors and executive functions. Involved in storage and processing of sensory inputs and motor outputs.

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21
Q

Name some of the groups of nuclei in the Basal Ganglia

A

Caudate nucleus, putamen both relay information from the cerebral cortex to the basal ganglia, nucleus accumbens is the neural interface between motivation and action.

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22
Q

What was Franz Joseph Gall famous for pioneering?

A

Phrenology - measuring the skull and corresponding measurements to various personality traits. He believed that the larger the brain structure that is responsible for that trait, the more likely they are to possess it.

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23
Q

Define structural neuroimaging

A

Techniques that image the brain live.

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24
Q

What did Santiago Ramon y Cajal do and what did he and William James believe?

A

Drew out the structure of a neuron using microscope and drawing tools. Believed that brain structure changes with experience.

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25
Q

What did Donald O Hebb discover about learning and neurons?

A

when an axon of cell A is near enough to excite cell B and does this often, some growth process or change takes place in one or both cells such as A’s efficiency is increased

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26
Q

What is Hebbian plasticity?

A

Synaptic connections are determined competitively: “Cells that fire together, wire together”. “Cells our of sync lose their link”. Natural selection for the most useful synaptic connections.

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27
Q

Describe the steps in brain processing. (5)

A
  1. Brain collects sensory information
  2. Pressure info travels through PNS, V1 and somatosensory cortex (S1)
  3. Processed information will translate into electrical signal
  4. Frontal cortex will start planning the process (basal ganglia involved)
  5. That will be outputted into motor motion
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28
Q

What structure does a reflex circumvent?

A

Thalamus, instead it just goes to the brain stem and is monitored by the cerebellum.

29
Q

Define what the Palmer reflex is?

A

Infants grab anything that they’re able to (close their hands on it)

30
Q

What does an ordinary sensory pathway look like? Name an exception?

A

sensory organs -> thalamus -> primary sensory cortex

Exception is the olfactory pathway (does not go through the thalamus)

31
Q

The primary motor cortex (M1) is responsible for…

A

relaying all voluntary motor output

32
Q

What is diffusion tensor imaging (DIT)?

A

A type of MRI, measures connections between brain regions, enabling
researchers to study how major pathways between different
brain regions change over time.

33
Q

What is functional neuroimaging?

A

Imaging of the activity of the brain, not the structure.

34
Q

Name all the parts of a neuron.

A
  1. Cell body
  2. Dendrites
  3. Axon
35
Q

What is a dendrite?

A

On a neuron, an extension that is specialized to receive signals from other
neurons

36
Q

What is a cell body?

A

The central part of the prototypical neuron; it contains the nucleus and
integrates signals from all the dendrites.

37
Q

What is an axon?

A

The output extension of a neuron, specialized for transmitting signals to other
neurons or to muscles.

38
Q

What differentiates a neuron and an interneuron?

A

A neuron has long axons, an interneuron may have short or no axon.

39
Q

What is a glial cell?

A

Cells of various types that provide functional or structural support to neurons;
some contribute to changes in connections between neurons. Outnumber neurons 9:1.

40
Q

Which type of glial cells line the blood vessels in the brain and transport nutrients from the blood stream to neurons?

A

Astrocytes.

41
Q

What type of glial cells wrap the axons in myelin?

A

Oligodendrocytes.

42
Q

Define plasticity.

A

The capacity of the brain to change over time.

43
Q

What is imprinting?

A

A memory that forms within a certain time window, where an animal develops an attachment tto the first thing it sees.

44
Q

How does neurophysiology work?

A

Direct implantation of wires into the brain to record and stimulate single neurons, very invasive but provides a direct readout of neural communication. It has low spatial but high temporal resolution.

45
Q

How does fMRI work?

A

Works by measuring blood flow, more blood flow? More activity Good spatial resolution (1 mm or more with stronger magnet), decent temporal resolution with delay).

46
Q

What are some disadvantages of fMRI?

A

Only tracking blood flow, not specific NTs, ongoing brain activity, brain is never silent, but we can adjust for this.

47
Q

What did Karl Lashley do to find the engram (memory trace)?

A

Lesioned the brain of rodents piece by piece to find which ones disturbed their memory. Found that bigger lesions would result in bigger behavioural deficits but no one area seemed more important than the other

48
Q

What is the theory of equipotentiality?

A

Memories are distributed and not found in one place.

49
Q

What is a synapse?

A

specialized for chemical communication between axon and dendrite, where the two cells draw close (20 nm synaptic cleft

50
Q

What is the presynaptic side?

A

the axon has vesicles loaded with NTs

51
Q

What is the post-synaptic side?

A

the dendrite is studded with receptors to detect the transmitter

52
Q

What did the enriched environment do for rats?

A

Rats living in enriched environments showed greater learning capacity for learning how to get around mazes. Structurally the rats have longer neurons with more and longer dendrites

53
Q

How long does it take for structural changes in rats living in enriched environments to take place?

A

As few as 60
days of housing in an enriched environment can result in a 7
to 10% increase in brain weight of young rats and a 20%
increase in the number of connections in the visual cortex.

54
Q

How did the hippocampus of London cabbies differ from non-cabbies?

A

Bigger (infer that more dendritic connections to account for all the spatial learning)

55
Q

What do antagonistic drugs do?

A

Reduce the effect of NTs

56
Q

What do agonistic drugs do?

A

Increase effects of NTs

57
Q

What are the pros of psychopharmacology?

A

Interfaces with chemical language of the brain, different chemicals for producing different effect

58
Q

What are the cons of psychopharmacology?

A

Not selective to a brain regions, found receptors in other areas, brain can adjust to chemical changes over time

59
Q

Define LTP

A

Long term potentiation. When two neurons fire at the same time repeatedly (fire together, wire together), have tested this with electrodes measuring signals of neuron firing

60
Q

Define LTD

A

When two neurons fire out of sync they lose their strength of synapse (association between them gets weaker)

61
Q

What is synaptic plasticity? (4 specific ways)

A

How synapses change as a result of experience.

  1. More/less NT
  2. More/less receptors
  3. Bigger/smaller synapses
  4. Eliminating/Producing Synapses
62
Q

How did scientists discover that sensory neurons were different from motor ones?

A

Lesioning one did not affect the function of the other. It’s called the Magendie law of neural specialization.

63
Q

Where does the primary motor cortex get most of its input from?

A

Frontal lobe (high-lvl plans based on present situation, past and future goals). Also important are basal ganglia and cerebellum that are responsible for translating these higher lvl plans into sets of movements.

64
Q

Describe the process of picking up a coffee cup.

A

The process
begins with visual input from your eyes traveling to your
visual cortex (V1), which helps you find and identify the cup.
Regions in your frontal lobes coordinate the necessary plans
for grasping the cup, which your motor cortex (M1) then
directs by means of outputs through the brainstem, down
sets of fibers in the spinal cord, and out to the muscles of
the arm and fingers. As you reach for the cup, your basal
ganglia and cerebellum continuously track the movement,
making tiny adjustments as necessary.

65
Q

Describe EEG. Or electroencephalography.

A

A method for measuring electrical activity in the brain by means of electrodes
placed on the scalp; the resulting image is an electroencephalogram (also EEG).

66
Q

What are event-related potentials?

A

Electroencephalograms (EEGs) from a single individual averaged over multiple
repetitions of an event (such as a repeated stimulus presentation).

67
Q

Compare EEG and fMRI

A

EEG = cheaper, EEG = good temporal resolution (real time), fMRI is better in terms of spatial resolution

68
Q

What is single-cell recording?

A

Use of an implanted electrode to detect electrical activity (spiking) in a single
cell (such as a neuron).

69
Q

What did Georgeopoulos and colleagues find when using single-cell recording.

A

Found a neuron that fires way more often when monkey moves a joystick away from the body. Found others that fire during arm movements in other directions.

PSY260: Learning and Plasticity (6 decks)

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