Lecture 18 - Amnesia

Question 1

Anatomy of Memory

Answer 1

Prefrontal lobes
- important for short-term memory

Temporal lobes

• hippocampus and amygdala.
• processing of short-term to long-term memory.

Diencephalon

• thalamus, hypothalamus, mammillary bodies.
• processing of short-term to long-term memory.

Question 2

Retrograde

Answer 2

loss of memory for events prior to injury.

Question 3

Anterograde

Answer 3

inability to form new memories.

Question 4

Post-traumatic Amnesia (PTA)

Answer 4

period of time after brain injury during which new memories can not be formed (patient is also usually disoriented in time and space).

Question 5

Who is H.M.?

Answer 5

Patient H.M. suffered from epilepsy thought to be caused by a head injury at age 9.

H.M.’s epilepsy could not be controlled through drug interventions.

H.M. underwent bilateral temporal lobotomies in 1958.

Question 6

Who is H.M.?

Answer 6

Surgery successfully treated epileptic seizures, but left severe memory impairments.

His memory for the remote past was intact (could remember his childhood), but he had some RETROGRADE AMNESIA and severe ANTEROGRADE AMNESIA.

If you left H.M. for only a few minutes, upon returning he would most likely forget who you were or that you had already met!

Loss of episodic memory. Semantic memory generally intact.

Question 7

Semantic

Answer 7

memory for factual based material.

Question 8

Episodic

Answer 8

memory for events that can be linked to a time and place.

Question 9

What is it like to be H.M.?

Answer 9

“Right now, I’m wondering, ‘Have I done or said anything amiss?’ You see, at this moment everything looks clear to me, but what happened just before? That’s what worries me. It’s like waking from a dream.”
– H.M., 1965

“Every day is alone in itself, whatever enjoyment I’ve had, and whatever sorrow I’ve had.”
– H.M., 1968

Question 10

What Is Memory?

Classic cases of amnesia

The case of N.A.

Answer 10

A small lesion in the left dorsomedial nucleus of the thalamus.

Similar pattern of deficits to H.M.

Retrograde amnesia for the 2 years preceding the accident.

Almost complete anterograde amnesia – can remember virtually nothing of events since the accident.

More verbal than visual memory deficits, although both domains affected (e.g., has spatial memory impairments).

Episodic lost but semantic intact.

Question 11

What Is Memory?

Classic cases of amnesia

What types of functions may be left intact in cases of severe amnesia, such as H.M., Clive and N.A.?

Answer 11

• immediate memory – can recite back several words immediately (but within five minutes no recollection of words).
• intact memory for remote events (e.g., from childhood).
• factual knowledge (e.g. water boils at 100°C).
• perceptual and motor memory (e.g. riding a bike, brushing teeth).
• language and social skills.
• procedural learning (e.g. mirror drawing).

Other facets of functioning:

• Personality
• Intellectual Functioning

Insight into intact and impaired functions in amnesics enables us to learn much about memory processing.

Question 12

H.M. – procedural learning.

Answer 12

Task – draw object viewed in the mirror.

Practice makes perfect – even in H.M.

Never recalls having done the test!

Implicit memory.

stem-completion also intact – e.g., DEFEND, HELIUM, MODIFY

DEF__________

DEFEND, DEFEAT, DEFINE

Question 13

Amnesic patients do better in

Answer 13

completion than free recall task

Question 14

H.M.’s Contribution to Memory Research

Answer 14

The hippocampus is NOT the location of LTM, and is NOT necessary formation of LTM.
- can remember childhood.

The hippocampus is NOT the location of STM.
- can carry on conversations.

The hippocampus IS responsible for converting STM into LTM.

• understands new information, but a permanent record is never made.
• involved in consolidating memories overtime.

Question 15

Anterograde Amnesia

What brain regions are critical in anterograde amnesia?

Answer 15

for H.M. the hippocampus and parahippocampal cortex were removed (as was the amygdala).

Question 16

Parahippocampal cortex:

Answer 16

A region of limbic cortex adjacent to the hippocampal formation that, along with the perirhinal cortex, relays information between the entorhinal cortex and other regions of the brain.

• amygdala is probably only important for the emotional content of memories – flashbulb memories.
• amnesic patients can perform memory tasks, but they cannot learn anything they learned from it.

Question 17

Double Dissociation

Answer 17

Proof the hippocampus mediates consolidation?

Patient S.M. - bilateral AMYGDALA damage.
- could NOT establish conditioned emotional responses.

Patient W.C. - bilateral HIPPOCAMPAL damage.

• could NOT remember testing procedure.
• episodic (declarative) memory impaired.

Patient R.H. - bilateral damage to BOTH.
- BOTH kinds of learning impaired.

Question 18

Korsakoff’s amnesia

Answer 18

• severe anterograde amnesia.
• destruction of parts of diencephalon (mammilo-thalamic tract).
• temporally graded retrograde amnesia.
• • lose declarative memories but not procedural ones.
• confabulation is common.
• caused by thiamine deficiency due to alcoholism and poor diet.

Question 19

Retrograde amnesia and the temporal gradient

Answer 19

Korsakoff’s patients show a steep temporal gradient in their remote memories

Question 20

Retrograde amnesia and consolidation

Answer 20

temporal gradient to retrograde amnesia.

for closed head injury or even ECT (shock therapy) – memory loss is greatest for most recent events and rarely extends beyond a few years.

retrograde amnesia is quite severe in Wernicke-Korsakoff’s syndrome but still maintains a temporal gradient – suggests hippocampus is not the only structure necessary for memory.

Question 21

Confabulation

Answer 21

more than just “filling-in-the-blanks”.

patients with Wernicke-Korsakoff’s will make up information to hide a memory deficit.

indicative of a lack of awareness of the memory impairment (frontal lobe involvements).

Question 22

Confabulation:

Answer 22

A plausible, yet imaginary memory that fills in gaps in what is remembered

Question 23

Memory involves multiple brain regions

Answer 23

medial temporal lobes

• hippocampus
• entorhinal cortex
• parahippocampal cortex
• amygdala

subcortical structures
- mammilo-thalamic tract

neocortex

• posterior superior temporal gyrus
• dorsolateral prefrontal cortex

Question 24

Animal Models of Memory Research

Answer 24

We have learned a lot about memory from case studies, but individual cases are not as statistically powerful as group studies.

We know that different brain structures have different roles in learning and memory.

HUMAN memory research provides research DIRECTION, but ANIMAL research is needed for IN DEPTH ANALYSIS.

Question 25

Animal models of memory

Answer 25

Delayed match to sample
- monkey eventually gets a view & rmbr food was behind this card placed over it

Delayed non-match to sample

• pick card you haven’t seen before (2 cards)
• has to rmbr what its seen before & do comparison of cards & go for novel card

Question 26

Spatial memory – animal models

Answer 26

hippocampal lesions disrupt learning in a radial arm maze or Morris water maze.

Now have Virtual Reality Morris water mazes for humans

Question 27

Prefrontal cortex

Answer 27

output from BG – thalamus, from there to prefrontal and SMA

premotor, SMA involved in planning & execution

important for learning sequences of movements

Question 28

Triple Dissociation

Answer 28

MacDonald & White used the radial arm maze (RAM) to examine declarative, procedural and emotional memory.

Evidence for different memory systems mediated by different brain structures.

Lesions to the hippocampus produced deficits in declarative memory.

Lesions to the basal ganglia produced deficits in procedural memory.

Lesions to the amygdala produced deficits in emotional memory.

Question 29

Lesions to the hippocampus produced deficits in

Answer 29

declarative memory

Question 30

Lesions to the basal ganglia produced deficits in

Answer 30

procedural memory.

Question 31

Lesions to the amygdala produced deficits in

Answer 31

emotional memory.

Question 32

People with anterograde amnesia
A) are unable to recall childhood experiences.
B) show impairments in motor memory.
C) show normal complex relational learning.
D) are unable to learn new information.
E) show facilitated stimulus-response learning.

Answer 32

D) are unable to learn new information.

Question 33

The most profound symptom of Korsakoff's syndrome is
A) anterograde amnesia.
B) total amnesia.
C) combative behavior
D) delirium tremens.
E) auditory and visual hallucinations.

Answer 33

A) anterograde amnesia.

Question 34

Which of the following is true of confabulation?
A) Confabulation is seen in persons who simply mix up their memories.
B) Confabulation is intentional.
C) Patient H.M. shows severe confabulation.
D) Korsakoff’s patients fail to show confabulation.
E) Confabulation is the report of a fictitious event by a person with amnesia.

Answer 34

E) Confabulation is the report of a fictitious event by a person with amnesia.

Question 35

One striking aspect of H.M.’s memory deficit is that he
A) can learn some new tasks, but is unaware of having learned them.
B) only remembers recent facts.
C) reverses word order in repeated sentences.
D) indicates he remembers things he has never seen.
E) show signs of confabulation.

Answer 35

A) can learn some new tasks, but is unaware of having learned them.

Question 36

Which of the following is true of short-term memory?
A) Immediate memory precedes short-term memory.
B) Short-term memory has a limited capacity.
C) Short-term memory is impaired by repetition of verbal material.
D) Short-term memory has an unlimited capacity.
E) Immediate memory is distinct from short-term memory.

Answer 36

B) Short-term memory has a limited capacity.

Question 37

When tested in an 8-arm maze, a rat with hippocampal damage will
A) repeatedly visit arms from which they have already eaten a food pellet.
B) be unable to visit all of the arms.
C) be more efficient at getting food than is an intact rat.
D) only visit arms that have never held food in the past.
E) perform more efficiently than will a rat with damage to the fornix or entorhinal cortex.

Answer 37

A) repeatedly visit arms from which they have already eaten a food pellet.