Learning & Memory Flashcards
What concepts were postulated by Karl Lashley and his rat-maze experiments?
Mass Action (“memory is stored across brain tissue”/cortex acts as a unified whole)
Equipotentiality (all brain areas are equal/any part of a specialized area can handle the entire function)
What role does the hypothalamus play in cognition?
What role does the frontal cortex play in cognition?
Which struture “wins” in many teenagers?
Primitive emotional responses–the 4 F’s.
Higher functions–control over emotions.
Since their frontal cortexes are not fully myelinated, we can think of teenagers are more susceptible to hypothalamic impulses. I have no idea what this means
What processes are handled by the prefrontal cortex?
In addition to personality, “production/appreciation of art as an emotion”.
“Smooth running of memory, emotion, strategy”
¯_(ツ)_/¯
What role does the amygdala play in learning & memory? What does it communicate with?
What role does the hippocampus play in learning & memory? What is it susceptible to?
Amygdala faclitates storage of emotional memories (communicates with frontal lobe, hippocampus).
Hippocampus facilitates storage of memories (emotional, declarative/episodic). Susceptible to distruption by stress.
Describe the hippocampal synapse. What is the basis of synaptic plasticity?
The synapse is glutaminergic, with a post-terminal AMPA receptor. Presence of this receptor is controlled by CaMKII(+)/Calcineurin(-) levels. Increased intracellular calcium via NMDA receptor promotes AMPAr levels via CaMKII.
What is long-term potentiation?
What is the opposite of this?
A process essential to establishing long-term memory. It is characterized by increased post-synaptic density of AMPA receptor (and increased expression of AMPAr and other stuff).
Note: Only meaningful in the context of a neural network. Pathway specific with different forms.
Long-term depression, related to forgetting.
Describe a couple of animal experiments that give us insight into learning & memory.
The Morris Water maze places rats in a water tank with an invisible platform. The rat will learn and remember the location of this platform.
Fear conditioning is more or less your basic classic conditioning; a rat is shocked in a container with an accompanying tone; it will associate the container and tone with pain and experience amygdaloid activation.
What role does neurogranin play in aging?
Diminished neurogranin appears to be associated with age-related loss of memory, as it regulates CaMKII and Calcineurin.
(I can’t verify this anywhere…)
