Lecture 10 - Learning and memory

Question 1

Define learning?

Answer 1

And adaptive process in which the tendency to perform a particular behaviour is changed by experience
- system tries to adapt to changes in environment
Experiences causes change physiological changes to nervous sytem
- circuits involved in perceiving, performing, thinking and planning are modified

Question 2

Define long term potentiation

Answer 2

Involved in synpatic plasticity
- makes synapses more potent/ strengthens connections
- requires a combination of :
• membrane depolarisation
• activation of NMDA receptors (Ca2+ calcium(

Question 3

What do learning theories focus on?

Answer 3

focus on acquisition processes

• how infor gets into the system
• influenced by distraction
• once info is in, we retrieve it

Question 4

What do memory theories focus on>

Answer 4

focus on retention and retrieval processes, consolidation of info - how we get info back

Question 5

What are the 4 types of learning?

Answer 5

1. S-R learning
2. motor learning
3. perceptual learning
4. Relational learning
   - all linked to different areas of the brain

Question 6

Outline SR learning

Answer 6

Connects perception/ stimulus to movement/ response, to anticipate stimulus

• can be automatic (reflex) or a complicated movement
• CC must regularly offuc prior to presentation of UCS and CS shouldnt regularly occur without UCS
• operant: Thorndike/ skinner, fruit loops maze thing - we learn via operating on our environment

Question 7

What did Donald Hebb say/do?

Answer 7

he added a physiological basis to SR learning, argued learning involves:
• synaptic plasticity - changes in structure/ biochemicstry that changes how they effect post-synaptic neurons
WHAT FIRES TOGETHER, WIRES TOGETHER

Question 8

What is Hebbs Rule?

Answer 8

If neuron A is active and trying to fire on neuron B, the connection could be strengthened via a plastic change. If Neuron B is receiving strong input from elsewhere (AP’s), it forms a better connection with neuron A as Neuron A is constantly there
- This explains condition/associative learning as neuron A becomes associated with the AP’s of Neuron B

Question 9

What does Hebb therefore define memory as?

Answer 9

Change in synaptic strength/weight

Question 10

What were Pavlov’s view of the physiology of learning?

Answer 10

CC reflected a strengthened connection between a brain area that represented cs and a brain area that represented UCS

Question 11

What did Lashely (1929,1950) do?

Answer 11

Wanted to investigate CC in the brain, removed portions of rat brains. He found:
• More brain removed = more problems with learning
• Doesnt matter where ,always worse at learning
• cut through connecting fibers = gneralised locatlisation about which areas do what
Falsely concluded that:
- memories were widely/ evenly distributed across the brain

Question 12

What did damage in animal studies prove?

Answer 12

Damage to Amygdala = no reinforcement/ conditioning

Damate to PFC = differences in goal directed behaviour which leads to reinforcement - struggle with behaviour that brins us towards a goal

Question 13

What did animal studies with dopamine show?

Answer 13

it Induces synpatic plasticity by facilitating LTP
- does this in the nuclues accumbens, amygdala and PFC
- important for memory consolidation - expecting a reward
Amygdala is important for LTP - it is the physiological version of wiring then firing together

Question 14

Define perceptual Learning

Answer 14

Result of changes in synaptic connections within SENSORY ASSOCIATION CORTEX

• connections are reinforced, so we know which 2 stimuli go together
• fMRI shows that memories of pictures, sounds, movements or spatial locations activate the appropriate areas of SAC
• sounds are in occiptal love - which then goes to inferior temporal and parietal lobe

Question 15

What does dame to inferior temporal cortex do?

Answer 15

Problems in visual discrimination

Question 16

which areas are important for CC?

Answer 16

Info between CS and UCS converges in LATERAL AMYGDALA

• high frequency stimulation to lateral amygdala leads to LTP
• blocking NMDA receptors here prevents CC

Question 17

What areas apart from amygdala are important for CC

Answer 17

• Supplementary motor area (learning sequences of movements)
• Pre motor area - selecting movements to make in response to stimli
• Basal Ganglia - involved in automated responses - why there is no automated responses in parkinsons
• ventral Tegmental area - lots of dopamine here

Question 18

Where does VTA project to?

Answer 18

• Amygdala/ lateral hypothalamus
- Neurons fire in response to stimuli capable of reinforcing behaviour or pleasurable things

• PFC - plans for movement, select movement/sequence/bodypart
• Nucleus accumbens - reinforces behaviour - addiction

Question 19

In terms of perceptual learning, what did DAVIS & SQUIRE (1984) argue?

Answer 19

Argues that perceptual learning involves changes in brain chemistry. Found that when animals were trained:
• INcreased productino of chemicals (RNA)
• increased production of proteins

Question 20

Outline SQUIRES MODEL (1987)

Answer 20

Info -> visual cortex -> prestriate cortex -> inferior temporal cortex

Question 21

Outline Wernicke-Korsakoff syndrome

Answer 21

Extreme ANTEROGRADE amnesia (alcohol amnestic syndrome)
- Fixed n time, cant learn anything new, think youre still young
- OFten caused by alcohol (vitamin B1, Thiamine deficiency)
Caused by damage to:
• thalamus and mamillary bodies (hypothalamus - gets input from hippocampus via fornix)
- areas crucial for learning and memory

Question 22

What are the symptoms of wernickes - korsakoff syndrome?

Answer 22

• Apathy, lack of insight, confusion, confabulation

* Disruption to front lobe functioning (reality checks)

Question 23

Outline patient HM

Answer 23

had Severa anterograde amnesia - due to a bilateral removal of temporal lobes to treat epilepsy (including hippocampus)
• couldnt form new, but could remember old, like korsakoff

Question 24

Outline DONALD WEBB (1949)

Answer 24

argued that no one mechanism could be rapid enough for immediate memory, but stable enough for permanent memory, argued there must be two things

Question 25

Outline Miller (1956)

Answer 25

7+- 2 chunks - meaningful group of stimuli which can be stored in stm, lasts for 6-12 seconds unless repeated

Question 26

outline MSM

Answer 26

• LTM has huge capacity, touble due to interferance
- lasts indenfinitely, mainly semantic coding, organisation is crucial for recall
• Sensory registratial stores raw uncoded info
• STM is stored acoustically/ visually via rehearsal
-Acoustice = auditory loop
- Visual - visio-spatial sketchpad

Question 27

OUtline LTM

Answer 27

• Unlimited storage

- relatively permanant biochemical strucutural changes in neurouns resulting ni lasting changes in synaptic change

Question 28

Describe HM’s hippocampus damage

Answer 28

• Still had some perceptual learning (if its implicit, not explicit) - as implicit isnt in hippocampus
• Still had some S-r learning (e.g. eye blink response) - as its amygdala, not hippocampus
• still have some motor learning - e.g. sequence button pressing, mirror drawing

Question 29

What are the 2 types of LTM and who proposed them?

Answer 29

TULVING 1972

- Semantic, episodic

Question 30

Describe the taxonomy of memory

Answer 30

Knowledge -> split into 2:

1. Non-declaritive/ implicit/ procedural
   - mental implicit
   - motor SR learning
2. Relational/explicit/declaritive
   - episodic (stm-ltm)
   - semantic (general knowledge)

Question 31

Outline Non-declaritive/ implicit/ procedural

Answer 31

• unconcious, not deliberately learned
• SR learning, conditioned emotional response - requires AMYGDALA AND DOPAMINE
• Motor learning requires BASAL GANGLIA
• Perceptual learning requires INFERIOR TEMPORAL CORTEX

Question 32

outline Relational/explicit/declaritive

Answer 32

• explicit, concious learning about acts, events, people, stimuli
• relational requries HIPPOCAMPUS

Question 33

how is the limbic system involved in memory?

Answer 33

• responsible for emotion, memory and motivation
• found in border of cortex and subcortical areas
  Areas include:
  • FORNIX - conncets hypothalamus to cerebrum
  • THALAMUS - relay station
  • HIPPOCAMPUS - memory
  • SEPTUM - plesure centres (particularly sexual)
  • AMYGDALA - emotional reactions (fight or flight), at end of hippocampus, rewards, LTP, consolidates hippocampus memories,

Question 34

how is the hippocampus involved in memory?

Answer 34

• olfactory bulb
• olfactory tract
•mammilliary body
- hippocampul circuit - important for alzheimers

Question 35

What are symptoms of alzheimers?

Answer 35

- form of dementia, prevalent in old age
• progressive memory loss
• cognitive problems (planning, language etc)
• confusion
• depression
• hallucinations
• sleep pattern changes

Question 36

What are the bio causes of alzheimers?

Answer 36

1. Neurons degenerate - dying axons/ dendrites form tangles and plaques. Gets progressively worse
   - they wither, thin out and die - struggle with LTP, cant consolidate
2. Disrupted ACH production - a NT which helps neurouns communication, sends axons to hippo campus
3. Severe degeneration of hippocampus
   - 1st effected, causes loss of episodic memories, association cortex of frontal and temporal lobes
   - SHELINE (2004) - those with depression had smaller hippocampi

Question 37

Which 2 temporal lobe areas are implicated in dementia?

Answer 37

1. Lateral temporal lobe

2. Medial temporal lobe

Question 38

Outline how the Medial temporal lobe is involved in dementia

Answer 38

• One of the 1st areas damaged by alzheimers
• it includes/effects:
  • hippocampus
  • episodic memory
  •anterograde amnesia (later on: retrograde too)

Question 39

OUtline how lateral temporal lobe is involved in dementia

Answer 39

• lateral = outside
• damaged by semantic dementia (different type)
• loss of memory for facts, episodic is in tact.