Hippocampus + Henry Moliason

Question 1

Role of hippocampus

Answer 1

Responsible for establishing background context onto incoming information (provides context of location and time)
Contains cells which reproduce to form new memories
Important for voluntary recalling of explicit and declarative memory

Question 2

Role of hippocampus in memory storage

Answer 2

Responsible for consolidation, the permanent storage of memory - without it a person cannot encode new memories into long term
Not involved in unconscious recalling of memory, implicit, semantic and procedural memory

Question 3

Henry Moliason case study

Answer 3

He had epileptic seizures and had his hippocampus removed
He lost his long term memory, but his short term memory remained intact

Question 4

Henry Moliason tasks

Answer 4

Recalling memories
He could recall some memories but only from before the surgery
IQ + personality test - didnt change
general questions - could recall basic facts(shows semantic memory isnt involved in hippocampus)
maze task - couldn’t form new memories on how to solve the maze
Procedural tasks- was able to play tennis though didn’t remember learning it (procedural memory is seperate from hippocampus)

Question 5

Findings

Answer 5

• hippocampus is vital for encoding STM into LTM
• different systems for making and retrieving long term memories
• different types of memories(semantic, declarative, procedural)

Question 5

Ethics

Answer 5

Henry couldn’t provide informed consent as his memory was impaired and he would forget that he’d consented
His identity wasn’t revealed until he died (anonymity)