Learning And Memory

Question 1

What is learning?

Answer 1

A behavioural experience associated with change
Where the change allows some form of adaptation
So not change incurred by brain damage

Question 2

What is memory?

Answer 2

The encoding of the learning experience
Physical basis of memory is the change in the brain

Question 3

What are types of learning?

Answer 3

Associative learning
Non-associative learning

Question 4

What associative learning?

Answer 4

Based on associations between different phenomena

Question 5

Whats non-associative learning?

Answer 5

Not based on associations
Habituation - repeated exposure to a stimulus that offers no threat/benefit

Question 6

What did Ivan Pavlov do?

Answer 6

Early idea: connection developed between two brain areas

Classic conditioning:
- conditioned stimulus
- unconditioned stimulus
- unconditioned response
- conditioned stimulus
- conditioned response

Question 7

Whats operant conditioning?

Answer 7

Response is followed by a reinforcement or a punishment

Response: rat enters one arm of the maze
- One side = reinforcement - fruit loops
- One side = punishment - shock
- Increased probability of same response
- Shift to different response

Question 8

Whats the function of learning?

Answer 8

Offer an adaptive advantage
Allow organisms to respond to the environment
Develop efficient responses to positive stimuli
Develop efficient avoidance of negative stimuli

Question 9

Where does learning occur?

Answer 9

Pavlov - classical conditioning resulted in strengthened connection between the two areas of the brain (CS and UCS)

Question 10

Where does learning occur? Lashley

Answer 10

Built on Pavlovs idea - search for the ENGRAM

= a physical representation of what has been learned

By making cuts (lesions) in the brain, can you find the connection between CS and UCS

Question 11

What did Lashley do?

Answer 11

Multiple deep cuts in the rat brain
Didn’t impair learning
Learning was impaired by large lesions, but not in a single area

Equipotentiality: all parts of cortex contribute equally to complex behaviours

Mass action: cortex works as a whole

Question 12

Where does learning occur? Richard Thompson

Answer 12

CC responses in the rabbit

Tone - puff of air in eye = blink - tone = blink

Increased response in lateral interpositus nucleus in the cerebellum

Question 13

Where does learning occur? LIP

Answer 13

Just because an area changes during an activity, does that mean that learning actually takes place there

Or is it part of a chain of structures

LIP suppressed during conditioning, and the rabbits didn’t learn
Later experiments showed that the red nucleus is crucial for performance of a conditioned response, but not learning

Question 14

What is working memory?

Answer 14

Stored info that is still in use
Info that is still relevant
Info crucial for complex cognitive activities

Question 15

How would you find out which brain areas are used for working memory?

Answer 15

Delayed response tasks
- testing ppts responses to stimuli they saw/heard a short while before
- record activity in the brain during the delay

Where is the info being stored?
- pre-frontal cortex - associated with complex, executive cognitive functions

Question 16

What changes art the cellular level during learning?

Answer 16

Habituation
- decrease in response to a stimulus that is presented repeatedly

Sensitisation
- increased responses to unpleasant stimuli after a shock
- highly sensitive to sudden nosies, etc. in the days after intense acute pain?
——— function? Learning that the environment might present more trouble

Question 17

Whats long-term potential?

Answer 17

Axons bombard a dendrite with a rapid series of stimuli which leaves the synapses more responsive (potentiated) for a period of time

Question 18

Whats long-term depression?

Answer 18

When axons are active at low frequency, response reduces

Question 19

Whats the case study of patient H.M?

Answer 19

Severe epilepsy
Bilateral ablation (removal) of hippocampus (thought to be related)
Reduced the seizures
But severe memory impairment

Intellect and language intact, working memory intact, but severe impairment on forming now long-term memories

Question 20

Whats anterograde amnesia?

Answer 20

Loss of memory for events that happened after the brain damage

Question 21

Whats retrograde amnesia?

Answer 21

Loss of memory for events that happened a few years before brain damage

Question 22

Whats the main role of the hippocampus?

Answer 22

Specialised for declarative memory
Specialised for spatial memory
Specialised for configural learning

Question 23

What does Specialised for declarative memory mean?

Answer 23

Hippocampus is crucial for declarative, episodic memory, remembering specific, personal events

Damage hippocampus in animals and test their abilities
Delayed matching to sample task
Performance is impaired

Question 24

Whats does Specialised for spatial memory mean?

Answer 24

Hippocampus is crucial for remembering places and locations
London taxi drivers have larger hippocampus than non-taxi drivers
PET scan showed activation when describing a route
Those driving for longer had even larger hippocampus
Implies experience leads to growth

Question 25

What does Specialised for configural learning mean?

Answer 25

Remembering stimuli relative to other stimuli

Problem
- animals with damage can (slowly) learn configural tasks

Modified theory
- Hippocampus records configural info quickly, and cortex detects repeated patterns
- hippocampus ‘binds’ info in order (smell of smoke with sound of crackling), cortex establishes this memory as important, and later connects it with memory of the fire

Question 26

What’s Korsakoff’s syndrome?

Answer 26

Brain damage leading to amnesia

Causes shrinkage of neurons throughout brain

So widespread damage, and because the pathway to the cortex is damaged, ‘executive functions’ are affected

Question 27

Whats Alzheimer’s disease?

Answer 27

Widespread atrophy (wasting away) of cerebral cortex, hippocampus and many other areas

Starts with minor forgetfulness, progresses to severe memory loss
Associated with aging
Better procedural than declarative memory
Better on implicit than explicit memory, but implicit is still impaired

Question 28

What causes Alzheimer’s disease?

Answer 28

Genetic component
- person with Down’s syndrome almost always acquire Alzheimer’s in middle age

Environmental component
- half of all cases have no known relatives with disease