Lecture 14

Question 1

Patient HM

Answer 1

Bilateral hippocampal removal at age 27
Profound anterograde amnesia
Two-year retrograde amnesia
Graded retrograde amnesia for the prior 11 years

Question 2

Korsakoff Syndrome

Answer 2

Damage to mammillary bodies, which are the main output of the hippocamus
Stuck in time
Anterograde and retrograde amnesia

Question 3

Mammilary bodies

Answer 3

Main output at the end of the hippocampus

Question 4

Clive Wearing

Answer 4

Accomplished musician who developed severe anterograde amnesia
Substantial retrograde amnesia
Children were “frozen in time”
No longer knew many semantic memories he used to know
Denies that he knows anything about music, but then he can play the piano - skill memory intact
Temporal lobes particularly devastated, including the hippocampus in the medial temporal lobe

Question 5

Long-term potentiation

Answer 5

Long-lasting increased excitability in neurons in the denate gyrus of the hippocampus
Enhances firing at the synapse

Question 6

Declarative (explicit) memory

Answer 6

Episodic (who, what, when, etc.)

Semantic (facts, “what is a cat”)

Question 7

Nondeclarative (implicit) memory

Answer 7

Procedural memory (skills)
Perceptual representations
Classical conditioning
Sensitization and habituation

Question 8

Patient RB

Answer 8

Severe amnesia because of oxygen loss to hippocampus during surgery
Significant because symptoms are similar to HM’s, but damage is much more concentrated to the hippocampus
Hippocampus appears to be the crucial structure

Question 9

Hippocampus in consolidation of memories?

Answer 9

Hippocampal lesions often associated with anterograde amnesia (new memories cannot be formed)
Is this the structure that creates/saves memories?

Question 10

Where is spatial memory stored?

Answer 10

Thought to be in the posterior hippocampus - HM can draw his new house because his posterior hippocampus is somewhat intact

Question 11

London taxi drivers

Answer 11

Have larger posterior hippocampi (more spatial information) and smaller anterior hippocampi
Perform better on spatial tasks (expected) and worse on verbal memory tasks
Suggests there is a cost to this memory

Question 12

Patient KF

Answer 12

Bad short term, good long term memory (double dissoc.)

Question 13

Patients KC and MS

Answer 13

Double dissociation between priming and episodic memory