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Neuro > Learning and Memory > Flashcards

Learning and Memory Flashcards

1
Q

Learning

A

Acquisition of new information

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2
Q

Memory

A

Retention of learned information

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3
Q

Declarative memory (explicit)

A

Facts and events
- can be verbalised
Hippocampus is important

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4
Q

Nondeclarative memory (implicit)

A

Procedural memory - motor skills, habits

Utilised the straitum (

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5
Q

Areas of the brain important in declarative memory

A

Medial temporal lobe
Dinecephalon
Hippocampus

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6
Q

Areas of the brain important in nondeclarative memory

A

Procedural memory: skills and habits in the Striatum
Cerebellum
Amygdala

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7
Q

Forms of condition that fall under nondeclarative memory

A

Classical conditioning

  • Skeletal musculature (cerebellum)
  • Emotional responses (amygdala)
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8
Q

What are the types of declarative memory?

A
  • Working memory
  • Short-term memories
  • Long-term memories
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9
Q

Working memory

A

Temporary storage, lasting seconds

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10
Q

Short-term memories

A

Vulnerable to disruption
Facts and events stored in short-term memory
Subsets are converted to long-term memories

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11
Q

Long-term memories

A

Recalled months or years later

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12
Q

Describe the process of converting short- to long-term memories

A
  1. Sensory information passes into the working memory and the short-term memory
  2. Consolidation over time means the memories can pass into the long-term memory
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13
Q

What is parallel memory working?

A

Things can go to short-term and immediate working memory

Information can flow between working memory and short-term memory easily

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14
Q

Where is the long-term memory located?

A

There is no single site for long-term memory. It can diffuse throughout the cerebral cortex.

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15
Q

Function of the pre-frontal cortex

A

Self- awareness, capacity for planning and problem solving.

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16
Q

Why do primates have a large frontal lobe?

A

Capability for the high-level decision making and the use of the working memory. Also able to make more coherent decisions

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17
Q

Delayed response task

A

A brief visual or auditory stimulus that is then withdrawn, and after a delay of several seconds attempts to identify the location where the stimulus appeared, and is rewarded if correct.

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18
Q

Cue period in testing for working memory

A

Tests show that there was a reasonable level of activity in the pre-frontal cortical neurons when remember information that has been seen to record later.

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19
Q

Delay period in the working memory task

A

In some regions of the pre-frontal cortex, increase in spike activity but decrease in others. Assummed that this period is active for remembering when the stimuli has been hidden.

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20
Q

Conclusions of the working memory task

A

Some evidence suggesting that there is a population of neurons that increase firing and associated with retaining information in the working memory

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21
Q

Other brain regions involved in working memory

A

Lateral intraparietal cortex neurons located towards the posterior part of the brain.

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22
Q

Describe the delayed saccadic task used to detect the use of lateral intraparietal cortex neurons in memory

A
  • An animal is trained to sit infront of a VDU screen and to fixate on a central point (fixation point).
    • At that time, a target will flash off to the periphery.
    • There is a delayed period of which the fixation point remains and the animal is trained to remain fixated on the point. It is also trained that when the fixation point is removed, they will look at where the target was. This is a saccade.
    • During the fixation delay period, this is assuming the working memory is at play for the animal to retain where the target flashed.
      Recording neuronal activity in the lateral intraparietal cortex neurons, during the delay period, there is an increase in neuronal firing compared to the quiescent period before the start of the experiment.
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23
Q

Saccadic eye movements

A

Rather than, slow tracking movements, quick movement off to the periphery.

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24
Q

What is another concept based on neurons in terms of where memories are stored?

A

The engram

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25
Q

Who postulated the Engram Theory?

A

Donald Hebb in the 40s, which has now been proven to be correct.

26
Q

What is Hebb’s Cell Assembly and Memory Storage Model?

A
  1. All neurons in the brain are interconnected not just with single neurons but other neurons in neural networks.
  2. With an external stimulus, for example the presentation of a circle in the visual field, this activated the cell assembly (a group of interconnected neurons firing together).
  3. With collective firing, there was reverberating electrical circuits within the neurons continuing to show increased activity even after removal of the stimulus.
  4. This leads to Hebbian modification. A modification of these circuits will cause strengthen of connection between the neurons. This will cause a strengthened group of neuronal connections responding to a particular stimulus.
  5. After a learning process, even if there is only a partial presentation of the original stimulus, it is possible that the series of circuits will be activated. Such that there is sufficient activation, that the brain will interpret what it is seeing as the full original stimulus.
27
Q

Consolidation of Memory

A

The movement of memories from the working memory or short-term memory into the long-term memory.

28
Q

What is the function of the medial temporal lobes

A
  • Involved in consilidation.

- Language and speech. - - Home of the hippocampus

29
Q

Position of the Hippocampus

A

Shown a coronal section it is located near:

  • The entorhinal cortex
  • The perirhinal cortex
  • The parahippocampal cortex
30
Q

Information flow through the medial temporal lobe

A
  • Sensory information enters the cortical association areas throughout the brain.
  • Then funnelled through the parahippocampal and rhinal cortical areas
  • Allow the funnelling of neurons and information transmitted by the neurons into the hippocampus.
  • Memories may not stay here, they pass through the pathway known as the fornix to the thalamus and hypothalamus.
  • The thalamus is the sorting region of the brain where information (memories) are distributed across the cortex or other brain regions.
  • Can also go from the hippocampus through pathways directly to other cortical areas.
31
Q

Function of the Parahippocampal and Rhinal Cortical areas

A

Closely related to the hippocampus allowing the funneling of neurons and information transmitted by the neurons into the hippocampus.

32
Q

Amnesia

A

The serious loss of memory and/or ability of life.

33
Q

What causes amnesia?

A

Caused by concussion, chronic alcoholism, encephalitis, brain tumour, stroke

34
Q

Encephalitis

A

Inflammation in the brain causing damage to cortical and hippocampal tissue

35
Q

Retrograde Amnesia

A

Following trauma, forming new memories, but cannot recall old memories

36
Q

Anterograde Amnesia

A

Following trauma, unable or severely limited in capacity to form new memories however, past memory is unaffected

37
Q

Henry Gustav Molaison

A
  • Had a bicycle accident and started to develop epilepsy and sizures
  • Removed parts of his brain including the medial temporal lobes.
  • Effective in reducing seizures but he was unable to form new long-term memories but remembered events before his surgery.
  • Patient sufference from both types of amnesia
  • Findings that memory is a distinct cerebral function, and involves the medial temporal lobe being important in memory.
38
Q

Clive Wearing

A
  • Piano player
  • Suffered from viral encephalitis
  • Damage to parts of the brain including the hippocampus
  • Little past memory and cannot form new memories so dependent upon his working memory
39
Q

What is spatial memory?

A

Ability to navigate around somewhere e.g. A to B

40
Q

What is the learning morris water maze?

A
  • Large volume of water containing a platform that is not visible from the surface of the water
  • Experiment using a rat, its response will be to get out of water and onto dry ground
  • Find the dry land, it will swim recording the activity until it finds the platform.
  • Delay
  • Taking the same animal and putting them into the water maze. If they retain the navigation information, they will make a beeline straight to the platform. It can also use navigational cues
    This shows that there is an intact spatial memory.
41
Q

Lesions in the hippocampus

A

Using lesions to disrupt regions of the hippocampus, the spatial memory will be disrupted and will take a longer time to get to the platform. Indicating the importance of the hippocampus in spatial memory.

42
Q

Place cells

A

Will fire when the animal is in a specific place.

- In spatial memory, these place cells fire when an animal is in a particular location

43
Q

Adaptation in place fields

A

If out of the place field, an animal will adapt to the new environment and will start firing from the place cells when there is familiarity with certain areas

44
Q

What are the two models of memory consolidation?

A
  • Standard model of memory consolidation

- Multiple trace model of memory consolidation

45
Q

Standard model of memory consolidation

A
  • Information from the neocortex areas assocaited with sensory systems sent to medial temporal lobe for process.
  • There is synaptic consolidation and the systems are consolidated.
  • Post consolidation, the hippocampus is not necessary as the memories have been distributed throughout the brain.
46
Q

Multiple trace model of consolidation

A
  • Hippocampal involvement is continued - once the memory is consolidated, they can still be modified or tweaked by involvement of the hippocampus.
  • Multiple memory traces
47
Q

What do both models of memory consolidation depend on?

A

They are dependent upon synaptic plasticity

48
Q

What is synaptic plasticity?

A

The biological process by which specific patterns of synaptic activity result in changes in synaptic strength.

49
Q

Lazy: what is synaptic plasticity?

A

The more a neuron fires, the stronger the connection gets

50
Q

What is the model of distributed memory? How is this detected?

A

The idea that the memory of a stimulus is spread across multiple neurons. This is detected by looking at the differential firing between stimuli.

51
Q

How can changes in neuronal responses be explained?

A

Explained by synaptic plasticity

52
Q

What is the model used to explain synaptic plasticity?

A

The Trisynaptic circuit of the hippocampus

53
Q

Trisynaptic circuit of the hippocampus

A
  1. Information flows from entorhinal cortex, via performant path to the dentate gyrus.
  2. Mossy fibres originate from dentate gyrus (synapse 1) and synapse upon pyramidal neurons in CA3 hippocampal region (synapse 2)
  3. Axons from CA3 (Schaffer collaterals) synapse upon pyramidal neurons in CA1 hippocampal region (synapse 3)
54
Q

Bliss and Lomo model of Long-term potentiation in CA1 region of the hippocampus

A
  • Increasing neuronal activity in one input will strengthen the neuronal connections.
  • It will increase the excitatory post-synaptic potential for any given stimulus in the post-synaptic target neuron.
  • The connection is specific however to that input, as it will not affect the other inputs if there is no increase in neuronal activity there.
55
Q

Receptors involved in LTP in CA1

A

NMDA receptors

AMPA receptors

56
Q

Neurotransmitter involved in LTP in CA1

A

Glutamate

57
Q

Mechanism for LTP in CA1

A
  • Increase in tetanic stimulation will increase the release of glutamate
  • Activate the AMPA receptors removing the magnesium block and causing depolarisation and the activation of NMDA receptors
  • Allows the influx of calcium
  • Increase in calcium in the post-synaptic neuron will increase the calcium-calmodulin mechanism
  • Kinases are activated that bring effects related to LTP
58
Q

How does LTP occur in the CA1?

A
  • Increase responsitivity of AMPA receptors
  • Movement of additional AMPA receptors and increased expression at the post-synaptic cell surface
  • Elevated excitatory post-synaptic potential
59
Q

Structural changes following LTP

A

Dendritic spine growth after stimulation to the dendrite, there is an increase in the spine size

60
Q

Long-term potentiation

A

a persistent strengthening of synapses based on recent patterns of activity.

Neuro (20 decks)

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