Learning and Memory

Question 1

Patient HM

Answer 1

• hit his head from getting hit by a bike

- has a condition with lots of seizures and suffered from black outs and convulsions

Question 2

What did they remove from HM?

Answer 2

They removed his medial temporal lobes which includes his hippocampus, amygdala, and some cortex

Question 3

What did getting rid of HM’s medial temporal lobes do?

Answer 3

memory deficit

Question 4

Patient EP

Answer 4

• he had viral encephalitis at 70 which destroyed most of his medial temporal lobe
• hippocampus completely destroyed

Question 5

anterograde amnesia

Answer 5

the inability to form NEW memories

-what HM and EP have

Question 6

retrograde amnesia

Answer 6

• classic hollywood amnesia

- can’t remember past memories but can make new ones

Question 7

What are the two parts of long term memory?

Answer 7

declarative and nondeclarative

Question 8

declarative memory

Answer 8

things you know that you can tell others

• facts and events
• HM and EP cannot do this
• cant do without hippocampus

Question 9

non declarative memory

Answer 9

things you know that you can show by doing

ex: riding a bike
- can be formed without hippocampus

Question 10

Habituation

Answer 10

getting used to a stimulus

-weakening of the synapse connection that someone usually has with a stimulus

Question 11

long term potentiation

Answer 11

a stable and enduring increase in the strength of a synapse (opposite of habituation)

Question 12

what can lead to LTP?

Answer 12

increased activity at the synapse

Question 13

Tetanus

Answer 13

artificially inducing LTP by causing sudden spikes of activity at the synapse

Question 14

What causes an EPSP in the post synaptic neuron?

Answer 14

in influx if positive ions triggered by neuron A

Question 15

What happens right after LTP/tetanus event?

Answer 15

We get a bump in the graph where an EPSP is creating a large amount of depolarization

Question 16

Why do we get a depolarization from tetanus?

Answer 16

because in tetanus, we are exciting neuron A a lot which causes it to release a lot of neurotransmitters to neuron B

Question 17

What happens to neuron B after tetanus?

Answer 17

It has more receptors so the synapse is strengthened

Question 18

How can LTP be induced?

Answer 18

through classical conditioning

Question 19

Can LTP be a mechanism of learning and memory formation?

Answer 19

yes

Question 20

What are the two viruses in optogenetics?

Answer 20

channelrhodopsin and halorhodopsin