Exam 1: Chapter 1-2

Question 1

Define learning and memory.

Answer 1

Learning is a set of processes intiated by experience. Memory is a product of that process.

Question 2

What are the 2 goals of psychology?

Answer 2

1. Derive a set of principles that describe how experience influences behavior
2. Provide a theorectical account that can explain the observed facts

Question 3

What were the 2 methods Ebbinghause used to study memory?

Answer 3

1. Memorization Phase Repetition: number of times & how the list was presented
2. Test phase trial spacing: Interval between the learning and test phase

Question 4

What is the difference between the single trace theory and the dual trace theory of forgetting curves?

Answer 4

Single trace theory proposes that the forgetting curve reflects the natural decay of the underlying memory trace. In contrast the dual trace theory proposes that the forgetting results from the decay of two memory traces. One decays rapidly; the other much slower.

Question 5

Why does the pyschological approach only study memory at a single level of analysis?

Answer 5

Psychologists study only the relationship between experience and behavior, without manipulating or measuring brain processes.

Question 6

What does the neurobiological approach study?

Answer 6

Nuerobiologists study brain systems, synapses, and molecules, as well as behavior by manipulating the brain and measuring the brain’s response to experiences and drugs.

Question 7

What is Ribot’s Law?

Answer 7

Old memories are more resistant to disease/disruption than new memories.

Question 8

What did Serge Korsakoff propose about amnesia?

Answer 8

Amnesia can be due to either storage failure or retrieval failure.

Question 9

Korsakoff’s Syndrome is characterized by anterograde amnesia.

What is anterograde amnesia?

Answer 9

The inability to acquire new memories.

Question 10

In the late stages of Korsakoff’s Syndrome there is retrograde amnesia.

What is retrograde amnesia?

Answer 10

The loss of memories acquired before the onset of the disease.

Question 11

What is plasticity?

Answer 11

The brain changing in response to experiences.

Question 12

Proposed by William James

What are the 3 stages that memories emerge in?

Answer 12

1. An after image is supported by a very short-lasting trace
2. The after image is replaced by a primary memory trace that also decays
3. Secondary memory is viewed as the reservoir of enduring memory traces that with a retrieval cue can be recalled.

Question 13

Proposed by Santiage Ramon y Cajal

What is the Neuron Doctrine?

Answer 13

The idea that brain is made up of discrete cells called nerve cells, that are contiguous with each other.

Question 14

Proposed by Stantiago Ramon y Cajal

What is the Synaptic Plasticity hypothesis?

Answer 14

The idea the strength of a synaptic connection can be modified by experience.

Question 15

Prior to the Neuron Doctrine, there was the Reticulum theory.

What is the Reticulum Theory?

Proposed by Camillo Golgi.

Answer 15

The cells of the brain are fused into a giant network, the neuron was not an independent unit.

Question 16

What were Cajal’s 3 major contributions?

Answer 16

1. The neuron is an independent unit
2. Brain’s wiring diagram where axons terminate at specefic locations among fields of dendrites
3. The synapse

Question 17

Why is the neuron an anatomical unit?

Answer 17

It is the fundamental structural and functional unit of the nervous system.

Question 18

What are the 3 parts of a neuron?

Answer 18

1. Cell body
2. Dendrites
3. Axon(s)

Question 19

Why is the neuron a physiological unit?

Answer 19

Electrical activity flows through the neuron in one direction.

Question 20

Proposed by Santiago Ramon y Cajal.

What is the synaptic plasticity hypothesis?

Answer 20

The strength of a synaptic connection can be modified by experience.

Question 21

What did Ivan Pavlov develop?

Answer 21

Developed the fundamental methodolgy for studying associative learning in animals.

(What comes before the behavior)

Question 22

In Ivan Pavlov’s associative learning

What is the importance of the conditioned response?

Answer 22

It provides a behavioral measure of a learned association.

Question 23

What did Edward Thorndike develop?

Answer 23

Developed instrumental conditioning which demonstrates how we learn about the consequences of our actions.

(What comes after the behavior)

Question 24

In Edward Thorndike’s instrumental conditioning

What is the Law of Effect?

Answer 24

The correct behavior was learned because the consequences of a sucsessful outcome strengthend connections between the stimulus and the correct response.

Consequence of unsucsessful responses weaken the wrong stimulus and response connections.

Question 25

What did Ebbinghaus’s forgetting curve reflect?

Answer 25

Memory declines rapidly over the first hour, but remains stable thereafter

Question 26

Describe Lashley’s experiment and what he learned.

Answer 26

Lashley trained mice to complete a maze and recorded the number of errors made after cutting different sections of the brain. He showed that memory could be spread out across different brain regions.

Question 27

What did Donald Hebb propose?

Answer 27

Hebb proposed that cell assemblies of neurons could provide a substrate for memories.

Neurons that fire together, wire together.

Question 28

What is the hippocampus essential for?

Answer 28

Episodic memory

Question 29

How is the neuron a representation device?

Answer 29

Stores information about past synaptic experiences as changes in synaptic strength.

Question 30

Describe the Sodium-Potassium pump.

What is it stimulated by? What ions are exchanged?

Answer 30

Stimulated by intracellular increases in Na+. 3Na+ out, 2K+ in.

Question 31

Understanding Field Potentials

Why are intracellular and extracellular recordings mirror images of each other?

Answer 31

The intracellular electrode detecs positive ions flowing into the neuron, indicating synaptic depolarization. This draws the positive ions away from the extracellular electrode causing hyperpolarization.

Question 32

Understanding Field Potentials

What does the slope mean?

Answer 32

The slope reflects positive Na+ ions moving away from the electrode into the neuron, ie. the strength of the synapse.

A field potential is a measure of the strength of a population of synapses.

Question 33

What is the strength of a synapse defined by?

Answer 33

The strength of a synapse is defined by the change in transmembrane potential resulting from activation of the postsynaptic neurotransmitter receptors.

Question 34

Describe the long-term potentiation methodology.

Answer 34

1. Test stimulus: used to establish a baseline synaptic activity
2. Inducing stimulus: a high frequency stimulus that induces LTP
3. If the experiment is sucsessful, the test stimulus evokes a larger fESPS after

Question 35

Why is synaptic plasticity bidirectional?

What is LTD?

Answer 35

Experience can weaken synaptic strength.

Long-term depression occurs when a low frequency stimulus induces a lower fESPS than baseline.

Question 36

What are the 2 functions of postsynaptic density?

A major feature of excitatory synapses is a thickening of the postsynaptic membrane termed the PSD.

Answer 36

1. Localizes glutamate receptors and adhesion molecules
2. Positioning of other signaling molecules needed to modify synapses near glutamate receptors so that they can be rapidly activated.

Question 37

Signaling Cascades

What are first messengers?

Answer 37

First messengers target receptors on the post synaptic membrane.

Question 38

Signaling Cascades

What are second messengers?

Answer 38

Second messengers are molecules that relay signals from receptors on the cell surface to target molecules inside the cell. They amplify the effect of first messengers.

Second messengers are not proteins so they can rapidly increase.

Question 39

What are kinases?

Answer 39

Proteins that can change the function of exsisting proteins via phosphorylation.

Question 40

What are phosphatases?

Answer 40

Proteins that remove phosphate groups via dephosphorylation.

Question 41

How is a kinase activated?

Answer 41

When a second messenger binds to the kinase the inhibitory unit is dissociated and the kinase is in the active state.

Question 42

What determines the duration of LTP?

Answer 42

The number of theta-burst stimuli determines the duration of the LTP.

Question 43

Describe the in vitro LTP preparation.

Answer 43

Requires dissecting a thin tissue slice from the hippocampus and sustaining its function by placing the sample in a chemical cocktail. A stimulating electrode is positioned to stimulate axons, and a recording electrode is positioned to record the field potential.

Question 44

Why is the resting membrane potential negative?

Answer 44

There are more negatively charged ions inside the neuron.

Question 45

What are the 3 functions of phosphorylation?

Answer 45

1) Change a protein’s location
2) Change a protein’s ability to associate with other proteins
3) Change a protein’s enzymatic activity

Question 46

Initial change in the strength of synapses depends on ______; however, enduring changes require __________.

Answer 46

post-translation processes; new protein (transcription and translation processes)

Question 47

The performant path connects the entorhinal cortex to _________

Answer 47

Dentate gyrus

Question 48

Axons projecting from the dentate gyrus to CA3 are called _________

Answer 48

mossy fibers

Question 49

Shaffer collaterals terminate onto ________

Answer 49

CA1 neurons

Question 50

What is the order of memory loss according to Ribot?

Answer 50

1. Recent
2. Autobiographical/Personal
3. Habits/Emotional memory

Question 51

What is an excitatory synapse?

Answer 51

A synapse with a postsynaptic component that has dendritic spines containing glutamate receptors.

Question 52

Where would you place the extracellular recording electrode to measure the field potential if you stimulated mossy fibers?

Answer 52

in the CA3 region