Learning and Memory Flashcards
What is the difference between learning and plasticity?
Plasticity is activity dependent change at the level of the neuron.
Learning is the combined effect of encoding, storage, and retrieval of experiences and happens at the level of the organism.
Thus, plasticity underlies memory.
What is the role of the hippocampus in memory?
- Crucial for the acquisition of new declarative memories
- Necessary for navigation.
- Not necessary for short term memory
Hippocampus is not necessary for the formation procedural (motor) memories.
What is habituation?
Diminished neuronal firing in response to a repeated stimulus
What is sensitization?
A form of non-associative learning that leads to a progressive increase in neuronal activity in response to a repeatedly presented stimulus
A patient learns how to ride a bicycle after several days of training. However, she can not recall ever having learned to do so.
Which type of memory is impaired in this patient? Which type of memory is intact?
Declarative memory is impaired
Procedural memory is intact
Hodgkin recalls the time he first met Huxley.
Which type of memory does he experience?
Episodic memory
Classical (Pavlovian) conditioning is a type of _____ learning.
associative
Is the memory formed by classical conditioning implicit or explicit?
Implicit
Memory is thought to be consolidated in …
…the cortex
Morris Watermaze is used to study _____ in mice.
spatial memory / navigation
In a watermaze experiment, how does the mouse initially find a platform?
Through random exploration/detection
What are place cells?
Cells within the hippocampus that have invariant response to specific location (place field) within the open field.
Image source: Latuske et al., 2018
What is the function of grid cells and where can we find them in the brain?
We can find grid cells in the entorhinal cortex in the hippocampus.
They are involved in coding location.
What is the goal of eye-blink conditioning experiment?
It is a paradigm for associative learning of a motor response to a stimulus. Temporal learning.
Time between stimulus and response has to be short (tens to hundreds of miliseconds) for it to be learnable.
What psychological variables can affect memory formation?
(1) Emotion
(2) Attention
(3) Relevance
(4) Context
(5) Repetition
