Lecture 1 and 2 Quizzes

Question 1

How do we define learning vs memory?

Answer 1

Acquisition of information vs storage and recall

Question 2

What technique, developed in 1990, allowed us to begin to study brain function in intact humans rather than just post-mortems and animal experiments?

Answer 2

Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging

Question 3

What was the major difference between the surgery William Scoville carried out on HM in 1953 compared to the previous surgeries carried out by Wilder Penfield?

Answer 3

It was bilateral- previous surgeries had only been unilateral. There is a lot of literature on cross-connectivity in the brain and loads of disconnection studies in humans and animals.

Question 4

Where in the brain is the short-term working memory buffer believed to be?

Answer 4

Prefrontal cortex

Question 5

What were Brenda Milner’s 2 main findings about patient HM post-surgery?

Answer 5

HM cannot form new conscious (declarative) memories but also could learn procedural tasks (mirror drawing)- therefore providing the first evidence that there must be an anatomical distinction between these 2 types of memory (declarative and procedural)

Question 6

Brenda Milner’s studies of HM led to the definitions of which types of memory?

Answer 6

Explicit vs. implicit

Question 7

What makes Aplysia Californica a useful model system for studying learning and memory?

Answer 7

A simple nervous system arranged into ganglia with large nerve cells generates a range of behaviours.

Question 8

What 4 types of earning can Aplysia display?

Answer 8

Sensitisation, habituation, classical conditioning, operant conditioning

Question 9

Is protein synthesis necessary for memory?

Answer 9

Yes for the long term but not for the short term.

Question 10

What’s the neuromodulator involved in Aplysia gill withdrawal reflex sensitisation?

Answer 10

Serotonin

Question 11

What happens with cAMP after multiple stimuli leading to LTM vs a single stimulus leading to STM? (ie where does it additionally relocate)?

Answer 11

Nucleus

Question 12

What neurotransmitter/modulator in the hippocampus is the mammalian equivalent of serotonin in the Aplysia?

Answer 12

Dopamine

Question 13

What is the timescale of early vs late LTP?

Answer 13

Early up to 90 mins vs late up to days (even weeks/months)

Question 14

Which type of memory involves the POSTsynaptic cell?

Answer 14

Explicit

Question 15

Which type of memory involves the PREsynaptic cell?

Answer 15

Implicit

Question 16

The declarative memory system (knowing what)

Answer 16

Has a conscious component and it includes the memories of facts and events. For example, ‘Paris is the capital of France’, or an event like a prior vacation to Paris.

Question 17

Non-declarative memory (aka implicit memory) is knowing how

Answer 17

Memories for skills and habits (e.g., riding a bicycle, driving a car, playing golf or tennis or a piano), a phenomenon called priming, simple forms of associative learning [e.g., classical conditioning (Pavlovian conditioning)], and finally simple forms of non-associative learning such as habituation and sensitisation.