Learning and Memory

Question 1

What is the definition of learning?

Answer 1

→ Acquisition of new information

Question 2

What is the definition of memory?

Answer 2

→ Retention of learned information

Question 3

What is declarative memory and what part of the brain is responsible for it?

Answer 3

→ Facts and events

→ Hippocampus

Question 4

What is non declarative memory and what part of the brain is responsible for it?

Answer 4

→ Procedural memory (motor skills, habits)

→ Striatum

Question 5

What 2 things come under classical conditioning?

Answer 5

→ Skeletal musculature (cerebellum)

→ Emotional responses (amygdala)

Question 6

What is working memory?

Answer 6

→ Temporary storage that lasts seconds

Question 7

What is short-term memory?

Answer 7

→ Facts and events are stored in short-term memory

→ Subset are converted to long-term memories

Question 8

What is long-term memory?

Answer 8

→ Recalled months or years later

Question 9

Where can sensory information go?

Answer 9

→ Long or short-term memory

Question 10

What are the functions of the pre frontal cortex?

Answer 10

→ Self awareness

→ Capacity for planning and problem solving

Question 11

Describe the delayed response task?

Answer 11

→ place food in one of two wells
→ put a screen between the monkey and the wells
→ after a delay the screen is lifted
→ the monkey has to remember where the food is

Question 12

What is associated with the visual cortex?

Answer 12

→ Lateral intraparietal cortex

Question 13

What is an engram?

Answer 13

→ a collection of neurons that are responsible for the storage of a memory

Question 14

What is the substrate where a memory is going to be stored?

Answer 14

→ A group of neurons that have reciprocal connections

Question 15

Describe how an engram is formed

Answer 15

→ An external stimulus is presented
→ Activation of the cell assembly occurs
→ The combined activity creates a network that continues activation even after the stimulus has been removed
→This results in strengthening of certain connections between certain neurons
→ The strengthened connections of cell assembly contain the engram for the stimulus
→ even after learning partial stimuli lead to a whole representation of the stimulus

Question 16

What is a Hebbian modification?

Answer 16

→ Strengthens the reciprocal connections between neurons that are activate at the same time

Question 17

Where is the hippocampus located?

Answer 17

→ In the medial lobes

Question 18

What kind of information comes to the hippocampus?

Answer 18

→ Sensory information

Question 19

What does the hippocampus do with the information it receives?

Answer 19

→ Sensory information comes in

→ It is sent to the cortical association areas

Question 20

What kind of tissues are capable of forming engrams?

Answer 20

→ Any neuronal tissue

Question 21

What is the output pathway of the hippocampus?

Answer 21

→ the fornix

Question 22

Where does the fornix output to?

Answer 22

→ The thalamus and the hypothalamus

Question 23

What does the thalamus act as?

Answer 23

→ The post office sorting room for the brain

Question 24

What does the hippocampus feed back to and why is this important?

Answer 24

→ Feeds back to the cortical areas

→ Important for consolidation

Question 25

Describe the pathway that sensory information takes

Answer 25

→ Sensory information goes to the cortical association areas
→ Parahippocampal and rhinal cortical areas
→ Hippocampus
→ Fornix
→ Hypothalamus and thalamus

Question 26

What is amnesia?

Answer 26

→ Serious loss of memory and/or ability to learn

Question 27

What are the 5 causes of amnesia?

Answer 27

→ Concussion
→ Chronic alcoholism 
→ Encephalitis
→ Brain tumour
→ Stroke

Question 28

What is retrograde amnesia?

Answer 28

→ Severe decrement in memories that they have before the trauma

Question 29

What is anterograde amnesia?

Answer 29

→ Inability to form memories after the trauma

Question 30

What happened to Henry Molaison?

Answer 30

→ The surgeon removed his medial temporal lobes

→ lost the ability to make new long term memories

Question 31

Why was Henry Molaison able to learn new motor skills?

Answer 31

→ Hippocampus was removed - declarative memory

→ his non declarative memory - striatum - was still intact

Question 32

How does a Morris water maze work?

Answer 32

→ Submerged platform in a wading pool
→ let mouse find the platform
→ make the water cloudy
→ let mouse find the platform again

Question 33

When do place cells fire?

Answer 33

→ When animals are in certain areas

Question 34

What are the 2 models of memory consolidation?

Answer 34

→ Standard model

→ multiple trace model

Question 35

What is the standard model of memory consolidation?

Answer 35

→ Information from neocortex areas associated with sensory systems are sent to the medial temporal lobe for processing
→ synaptic consolidation - within the hippocampus
→ post consolidation - the hippocampus is not necessary

Question 36

What is the multiple trace model?

Answer 36

→ Hippocampal involvement is continued
→ multiple memory traces
→ Pathways can be continually modulated by continued experience

Question 37

What is synaptic plasticity?

Answer 37

→ Biological process by which specific patterns of synaptic activity results in changes in synaptic strength

Question 38

What does the model of distributed memory show?

Answer 38

→ Instead of three individual responses by three different neurons when you see 3 faces
→ there are changes in all 3 neurons when you see 1 face

Question 39

Describe the trisynaptic circuit?

Answer 39

→ Input from the entorhinal cortex next to the hippocampus
→ this comes into the perforant pathway
→ synapse onto granule cells
→ Granule cells synapse further onto Schaffer collaterals
→ they synapse onto CA1 pyramidal neurons

Question 40

What kind of stimulation is needed for long term potentiation?

Answer 40

→ High frequency rapid stimulation

Question 41

What receptors are located on the CA1 neurons?

Answer 41

→ Glutamate

→ NMDA and AMPA

Question 42

Describe how long term potentiation works in CA1 neurons?

Answer 42

→ AMPA receptors get stimulated 
→ CA1 neurons gets depolarised 
→ NMDA receptors open 
→ Ca2+ floods in 
→ Calmodulin kinases are activated
→ AMPA responsivity is increased 
→ more AMPA receptors added onto the post - synaptic membrane (CA1).
→ more responsive CA1

Question 43

What are the physiological changes in the dendrites after long term potentiation?

Answer 43

→ They swell because there are more receptors